Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.]

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

BILSTON CORPORATION BILL. [By Order.]

Lords Amendments considered.

The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Dennis Herbert): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendments."
The House may remember that this was on the Order Paper a week ago, and it was then postponed for a short time as the Lords Amendments had only then very recently been made available to Members in the usual way. I understand that those who asked for the postponement in respect of the Amendments are now satisfied, and I therefore beg to move them, and to explain them. The Amendments are roughly as follow: (1) A reduction in the area of protection of one of the promoters' wells; (2) Limitation on the promoters' powers of abstracting water; (3) The deletion of Clauses as to the breaking-up of boundary streets and as to trunk mains; (4) Various protective provisions for the benefit of the Wolverhampton Corporation, the South Staffordshire Water Company and others; (5) Other purely drafting Amendments.

Mr. Thorne: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether any serious dents are made in the Bill by these Amendments?

The Chairman of Ways and Means: I am not quite sure what a serious dent is, but acting on my opinion I should say, "No."

Question put, and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

Coal Carts (Weights and Scales).

Mr. De la Bère: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether prior to

arriving at the decision taken regarding the weights and scales on coal carts, he conferred with the two main representative societies?

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Dalton): Yes, Sir. The views of the Coal Merchants' Federation and the Society of Coal Merchants were invited and duly considered, along with those of other interests concerned.

Mr. De la Bère: Does my right hon. Friend realise that there is a very strong feeling that transport space could be saved by not dragging thousands of tons of useless iron about all day, and further is he not aware that this metal would be valuable for munitions, which would be very useful?

Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir, but I am anxious that coal should be available for people at its proper weight, and I am advised by the local authorities I have consulted and also by the Society of Inspectors of Weights and Measures that they are unanimously of the opinion that this practice should continue. In this case we should be good Conservatives and not make rash changes.

Mr. De la Bère: Is it not a fact that these weights and scales are never used at all?

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir, I am advised that they are frequently used, particularly in rural areas, where it is very necessary to protect small consumers against short weight.

Sir Herbert Williams: Did the right hon. Gentleman receive a letter from me containing a letter from the Croydon Corporation about the needless waste involved as these tests are never taken, and recommending the disuse of these weighing machines?

Mr. Dalton: I receive a large number of communications from my hon. Friend. I have gone rather wider in my consultations on this occasion.

Sir H. Williams: Did not the right hon. Gentleman say that the opinion of inspectors of weights and measures was unanimous, and is not that in conflict with the communication I have mentioned?

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir; I have not consulted all inspectors of weights and measures, but I have consulted the society which represents them.

Mr. Thorne: Before this compulsion was there not a good deal of cheating going on, and is it not a fact that local authorities send their inspectors to weigh coal now and again?

Mr. Dalton: The statutory practice will be continued.

Film Industry.

Miss Cazalet: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that during the first quarter of this quota year only nine British films of feature length have been registered; and will he put a stop to the process of drawing on the reduced man-power and studio space of the British film industry proper, in view of the fact that many of these persons so withdrawn are reincorporated in Government and service film units?

Mr. Dalton: The Answer to the first part of the Question is "Yes, Sir." In view of the unforseeable demands for manpower and factory space for war purposes, I cannot give any undertaking that the film industry will be allowed to preserve intact its present labour force or even its present studio space; but every effort will be made to continue to preserve a sufficient nucleus of film production. The form of service on which persons withdrawn from the film industry are emplayed is not the direct concern of my Department but my hon. Friend will appreciate that the Government and Service film units are doing work of great importance.

Miss Cazalet: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if the present position is allowed to continue unchecked, the British film industry, which has been built up with such trouble during the last 20 years, will soon be in the deplorable condition it was in at the end of the last war? Will he look into the position closely himself?

Mr. Dalton: I can assure the hon. Lady that I am looking into it very closely. I am receiving representatives of the film industry in the course of the next week. I am anxious to do everything possible, but the film industry, like every other industry, is subject to the inevitable pressures of war, as the hon. Lady will recognise.

Trading with the Enemy Department (Letter).

Sir H. Williams: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the letter dated 20th July, addressed by the Trading with the Enemy Department to a correspondent, who was forwarding to a British subject in Toulouse a letter addressed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade to the honourable Member for Croydon South, containing information as to the method whereby the British subject in question could file a claim in respect of losses arising out of the war; and why it should be necessary that the correspondent in question should be asked to furnish the Department with full particulars in explanation of the matter?

Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir; my attention has been drawn to this letter. It is contrary to the practice of the Censorship to allow private individuals to forward copies of official or semi-official letters to enemy controlled territory without special authorisation. I regret that the letter in question contained a demand for an explanation instead of advice as to the proper procedure. I have given instructions which should prevent this happening again.

Sir H. Williams: As the Parliamentary Secretary wrote me a letter for the purpose of passing it on to a distressed British subject in France, surely that should be sufficient guidance to all concerned?

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir, the hon. Member is wrong. It is unusual, and I hope it will not become a practice, to send to enemy controlled territory copies of communications from Ministers to Members of this House.

Sir H. Williams: As the inquiry was to guide this distressed British subject, who has had his business stolen by the Germans and his house blown up by British bombs, as to how he could file a claim, what was the use of sending information which would remain buried in my breast and be of no use to the distressed person?

Mr. Dalton: I think the hon. Member might perhaps have paraphrased the sense of the communication.

Mr. De la Bère: Is it not all really red tape, when all is said and done?

Mr. Dalton: No. Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

Combative Spirit (Sentenced Soldiers).

Mr. Ivor Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for War, whether in order to encourage an offensive spirit throughout the Army, he will remit the sentences on Sergeant Peter King and Private Tom Cuthbertson, Army Dental Corps, who recently took a motor-boat to France without authority or, alternatively, reduce the sentences to reprimand?

The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Grigg): These sentences have been confirmed by the appropriate military authorities, and I am not prepared to override their judgment. I quite appreciate, however, the desire of these men for a more combative life and will make arrangements for them to be transferred to an arm where I hope it can be gratified.

Soldier's Death.

Sir Robert Young: asked the Secretary of State for War the circumstances under which No. 4038893, Private Dootson, met his death; and why only provisional diagnosis of cause of death was communicated to his wife?

Sir J. Grigg: The verdict of the coroner's inquest was, briefly, that Private Dootson shot himself, there being no evidence as to the state of his mind at the time. The notification sent to the next-of-kin by the Officer in charge of Records was based on information given by the civil hospital in which Private Dootson died. The diagnosis was provisional pending the holding of the inquest.

Sir R. Young: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why there was an alteration in the time of the arrival of the body at the station, and what the circumstances were which caused it?

Sir J. Grigg: That is a new fact to me. Perhaps the hon. Member will let me look into it.

Officers (Relegation to Unemployment).

Mr. Touche: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that cases have arisen of officers on sick leave receiving notification of the termination of their employment taking effect as from a date considerably prior to the date of notification to the officer concerned; and whether, as this practice is both unfair to officers and prejudicial to the reputation

of the Army Council, he will take steps to prevent its recurrence?

Sir J. Grigg: The regulations prescribe the maximum periods of sick leave on full pay which are admissible, and every endeavour is made to ensure that all officers receive in advance a warning letter as to the date of cessation of pay. I am aware, however, that isolated cases have occurred where it has not proved possible to give such advance notification and steps are under consideration to avoid any such cases arising in the future.

Mr. Touche: Does my right hon. Friend think it right to tell an officer in January that his employment terminated on 1st November?

Sir J. Grigg: As I said, of course I do not think it is right, and I hope I have taken steps which will ensure that it does not happen in future.

Recreational Films.

Mr. John Dugdale: asked the Secretary of State for War whether it is still impossible for units to obtain films for private showing if there is a public cinema within a radius of three miles?

Sir J. Grigg: The agreement between the War Office and the Kinematograph Renters' Society provides that recreational films hired under it shall not be shown within two miles of a public cinema and not three miles, as my hon. Friend suggests.

Mr. Dugdale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this agreement with a very rich and powerful organisation entails great hardship on soldiers who have to walk four miles and spend considerable sums out of their very small incomes?

Sir J. Grigg: I am aware that there is a case for looking into the matter, and I am looking into it.

Inspections, Eastern Command.

Mr. J. Dugdale: asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the practice of certain senior officers in the Eastern Command of carrying out what are called peace-time inspections; and whether, in view of the fact that we have now been at war for nearly three years, he will give instructions that such inspections shall cease forthwith?

Sir J. Grigg: I am not aware of any such practice.

Mr. Dugdale: If I were to inform the right hon. Gentleman of cases, would he look into them, and would he take steps to deal with the matter?

Sir J. Grigg: I will inquire into them first.

X-ray Examinations (Recruits).

Mr. Hewlett: asked the Secretary of State for War what would be the estimated cost of X-raying recruits on enlistment so as to avoid subsequent controversy over borderline cases?

Sir J. Grigg: In view of the many uncertain factors, I regret that I can give no reliable estimate of the cost. But my hon. Friend will appreciate that the difficulty of introducing any such scheme would be primarily in the shortage of the necessary apparatus and personnel.

Licensed Premises (Officers and Other Ranks).

Mr. Thorne: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will take steps to put out of bounds any hotel or public-house where it is shown that the licensee refuses to serve a soldier who wishes to obtain any refreshment in a room or lounge used by officers of the Army?

Mr. William Brown: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the feeling excited amongst American, Australian, Canadian and British troops by the exhibition in public-houses of notices, "Civilians and officers only"; whether these notices are exhibited as the result of instructions from local officers commanding; and whether he will take immediate steps to put public-houses exhibiting such notices out of bounds?

Sir J. Grigg: I am not aware that this practice is prevalent. If the hon. Members will bring to my notice any cases in which they think there is cause for complaint, I will inquire into them.

Officers' Cap Badges (Price).

Sir R. Young: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that young Army officers commissioned from the ranks have to pay as much as 5s. for an officer's regimental cap badge; whether anything can be done to prevent such profiteering at the expense of young

officers whose pay is small; and, in particular, whether arrangements can be made whereby these badges can be purchased from Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes or other military canteens at reasonable prices?

Sir J. Grigg: There is a great variation in the price of cap badges as between different regiments, which ranges from about 2S. 6d. to 7s. 6d. for the normal quality. I have no reason to think that there is profiteering by any reputable firm, but if my hon. Friend will let me have particulars of the cases he has in mind, I will have further inquiries made. I am not aware of any demand from officers for supply through the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes. In practice, this would be very difficult, since each Institute could expect only a very small and variable demand for any one of the many badges.

Sir R. Young: Would my right hon. Friend ask for information as to why the price of a badge has gone up from 3s. 1d. to 5s. in a few weeks?

Sir J. Grigg: Perhaps my hon. Friend will give me any information he has.

Funeral Expenses.

Sir R. Young: asked the Secretary of State for War whether there is a definitely fixed sum deducted for coffining and other expenses incurred by the military authorities applicable in each case from the £7 10s. allowed for funeral purposes for deceased soldiers sent home for interment; whether the deduction includes the transit of the body by rail or otherwise; and whether any travelling expenses are allowed to nearest relatives when the burial is conducted by military authorities?

Sir J. Grigg: The amount deducted is the actual cost, which, of course, varies. No deduction is made in respect of the cost of transit of the body, which is borne by the public. When the funeral is carried out under military arrangements, free return railway journeys for attendance at it are provided for two persons, one of whom must be a relative of the deceased.

Public Meetings (Soldiers' Attendance).

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has considered the letter sent to him by the hon. Member for West Fife drawing attention to the standing orders at Woolwich Royal


Artillery depot which forbid soldiers to attend public meetings, with a view to the avoidance of disorder, and threaten men with severe punishment for lying about on grass in public parks when in uniform; and what steps he is taking in the matter?

Sir J. Grigg: I am looking into this matter, and will communicate with the hon. Member.

Mr. Gallacher: Will the Minister make certain that nothing is allowed to inferiere with the right of a soldier to attend public meetings?

Sir J. Grigg: The right is not unqualified.

Mr. Gallacher: The right to attend public meetings is unqualified. The only point is that they are not allowed to speak at public meetings.

Sir J. Grigg: That is what I meant.

Mr. Thorne: Would a soldier attending a town council meeting be regarded as attending a public meeting?

Staff Officers Over 61 (Employment).

Mr. David Adams: asked the Secretary of State for War how many staff officers aged over 61 are now employed in this country; and whether the Government's policy in regard to the employment of these officers is being uniformly applied?

Sir J. Grigg: In December, 1941, 59 staff officers of the rank of major and above, aged more than 61, were serving in the United Kingdom. I regret that no more recent figure is at present available. With regard to the second part of his Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) on 5th May.

Mr. Adams: Will the Minister bear in mind the fact that there is excellent material here, which is still unemployed?

Home Guard.

Sir John Mellor: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the existing ambiguity, he will define the position of commissioned officers of the Home Guard, stating to what extent they have the obligations, rights and privileges of other commissioned officers and to what extent those of private soldiers?

Sir J. Grigg: I am not aware of any ambiguity. As the Home Guard is a part-time force, serving without pay, the obligations, rights and privileges of its members are not exactly comparable with those either of officers or of privates in the Regular Army. Home Guard officers have access to instructions which make their position clear in regard to powers of command and discipline and other matters. As regards financial benefits, all ranks of the Home Guard are treated alike, under regulations which are special to the Force. This has been a feature of the Force since its inception.

Sir J. Mellor: Is this extraordinary treatment of Home Guard officers due to financial reasons, military reasons, or some other—and, if so, what—reasons?

Sir J. Grigg: I am unaware of any extraordinary treatment of Home Guard officers. Perhaps the hon. Member will be a little more specific.

Major Mills: Perhaps my right hon. Friend is not aware that if a Home Guard officer is killed on duty, his widow is treated as being the widow of a private soldier, whereas, in regard to Estate Duty, he does not get relief on the whole estate, as he would if he were treated as a private soldier?

Sir J. Grigg: I think there is a little misconception, if not confusion, about this matter. There are two reliefs under different Finance Acts. There is a relief under the Finance Act, 1924, and that applies both to officers and to other ranks of the Home Guard. Then there is an exemption under the Act of 1894, which applies neither to officers nor to privates of the Home Guard.

Sir J. Mellor: Is it not the case that as regards pensions, travel and other matters, Home Guard officers are not in the same position as other commissioned officers?

Sir J. Grigg: I cannot deal with this matter by way of question and answer; but, from the inception of the Home Guard Force, in financial matters all ranks have been regarded as being on an equality, and they still are.

Physical Training (Hoops).

Miss Ward: asked the Secretary of State for War for what purposes the hoops are used which have been ordered for the Army?

Sir J. Grigg: I think my hon. Friend probably refers to the use of hoops for the physical training of the Auxiliary Territorial Service. They will be used for the same purposes for which they are regularly used in women's physical training colleges.

Miss Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that those hoops were ordered by the physical training side of the Army, and were not an order from the A.T.S. direct?

Sir J. Grigg: The hon. Member is better informed than I am.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Will the right hon. Gentleman not waste wood in war-time?

Sir J. Grigg: The whole cost is about £100; so it does not waste very much wood.

Coastal Raids (Warning).

Mr. Granville: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has yet devised and made known to the civilian population the form of warning to be given to them in the event of any attempted enemy attacks upon the coast of this country?

Sir J. Grigg: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave him on 14th July.

Mr. Granville: In the case of invasion, the church bells would be rung; but in the case of an attempted commando raid on the coast of this country, there is apparently no form of warning to the civilian population. Would the right hon. Gentleman consider some form of ringing the church bells for warning the civilian population?

Sir J. Grigg: Certain arrangements have been made, but, as I have said, I do not propose to make them public.

Mr. Granville: Are they known by those people who are responsible for handling the civilian populations on the coast?

Sir J. Grigg: They are known by all the people who require to know them.

Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

Mr. McNeil: asked the Secretary of State for War whether consequent upon

the formation of the Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, he will transfer from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps to the new organisation responsibility for the provision of spare parts and similar mechanical equipment?

Sir J. Grigg: Such a transfer was considered when the new corps was being planned, but it was decided that the provision and storage of spare parts and equipment are a matter for experts in storage and provision rather than for engineers. The closest contact will, however, be maintained between the new corps and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in this matter.

Mr. McNeil: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that for speed and simplicity of design this is the method, and that this is certainly the pattern upon which comparable commercial organisations base their organisation? Should we make an exception in this case?

Sir J. Grigg: On the first part of the question, I do not agree; on the second, I do not know.

Mr. McNeil: Will the right hon. Gentleman take the trouble to consult comparable commercial organisations, since they have experience of this sort of thing?

Sir J. Grigg: The scheme was drawn up by people who are primarily commercial.

Camp Incident (Complaint).

Mr. Barr: asked the Secretary of State for War (1) under what authority a soldier, who refuses to obey an order to put on uniform, is forcibly dressed;
(2) whether he is aware of the forcible dressing and ill-treatment of No. 10601407, Trooper A. Russell, at a camp in Scotland of which he has been informed; whether he is aware that this treatment was repeated daily; that this man's wife complained to the general officer commanding over two months ago and has since received no other information than an acknowledgement promising investigation and later her husband's torn civilian clothes; what investigations have been made; and what disciplinary action has been taken?

Sir J. Grigg: There is no authority for dressing a soldier forcibly. In the case of Trooper Russell, it has


been pointed out to those concerned that the action taken was wrong, but I am satisfied that it was taken in good faith and do not therefore propose to take disciplinary action.

Military Hospitals (Outpatients).

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is now satisfied that adequate records are kept at military hospitals of the visits of outpatients?

Sir J. Grigg: I hope shortly to issue new instructions which will put the recording of outpatients' visits to military hospitals on a sounder and more uniform basis than at present.

Discharged Men (Clothes Allowance).

Mr. McEntee: asked the Secretary of State for War what clothing, and or money for the purchase of clothing, is now given to a private soldier when he is discharged from the Army; and is there a larger sum given to non-commissioned officers similarly discharged?

Sir J. Grigg: With regard to the first part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Banfield), on 20th May. The cash allowance which may be chosen in lieu of civilian suit, cap, collar and tie is £2 16s. 5d. The treatment of non-commissioned officers and privates in this matter is identical.

Mr. McEntee: Does the right hon. Gentleman know of any place in London or in any other part of the country where they can buy reasonable clothing for the amount that is allowed?

Sir J. Grigg: It is always open to the person concerned to take the issue in kind, that is, the actual clothing.

Mr. McEntee: Are not the quality, design and cut of the clothes of such a character that no decent person would wear them?

Sir J. Grigg: I cannot accept that in these days of utility and austerity clothing.

Mr. Rhys Davies: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been called to the difficulties experienced by men discharged from the Forces to return to the

coalmines where the issue of clothing may be perfectly proper and the organisations involved do not seem to be able to get these things?

Sir J. Grigg: Perhaps the hon. Member will put down a Question on that point.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider revising the prices so that a man may have an austerity suit made available to him instead of the foolish get-up they issue as a civilian suit?

Voluntary Aid Detachments.

Major Milner: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the indignation caused by the proposed transfer of Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses to the Auxiliary Territorial Service, involving scrapping of uniforms and the transfer of trained girls who volunteered before the war from a service where they are working happily and well to another service; and on what grounds is the change being proposed?

Squadron-Leader Fleming: asked the Secretary of State for War whether the War Office proposal to transfer Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses, serving with Army units, to the Auxiliary Territorial Service has been voluntarily accepted, or otherwise, by members of the Red Cross and St. John organisation; and whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to compensate the said Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses if they be compelled to scrap their own Red Cross uniforms?

Sir J. Grigg: I received last week a deputation representing the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. As a result I am proposing to invite these organisations to appoint representatives to a Committee to be set up under an independent Chairman. The detailed arrangements are now in hand.

Major Milner: With a view to what?

Sir J. Grigg: To consider the relationship of mobile V.A.D.s to the Army.

Major Milner: Has a decision yet been taken on the proposed transfer?

Sir J. Grigg: No final decision has yet been taken. I have made that clear throughout.

Sir Geoffrey Shakespeare: Before any change in the status of the V.A.D.s is settled will Parliament have an opportunity of discussing the matter, in view of the general feeling of the honourable calling of nurses, both male and female, that they should have an opportunity of considering the question?

Sir J. Grigg: Their representatives are going to be on this Committee, and naturally when a report has been received I shall, if necessary; make a statement upon it to the House before any action is taken.

Major Milner: Will any Member of this House be on the Committee?

Sir J. Grigg: I do not think so.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is great public indignation about this suggestion?

Sir J. Grigg: I have had a good deal of correspondence on the subject, and I am fully aware of all the feelings in the matter, which are not uniformly in one direction.

Mr. Goldie: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that no final decision will be come to until the Committee has reported?

Sir J. Grigg: I have been trying to give that assurance now for some time.

Mr. Mathers: Will the Minister keep in mind that we also in this House are representatives of the people concerned and that we want our point of view to be taken into account?

Sir J. Grigg: I think that that can best be taken into account if, as I promised, I bring it before this House before any action is taken.

Mr. De la Bère: Why not abandon the whole idea?

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH RED CROSS SOCIETY (FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE).

Miss Ward: asked the Secretary of State for War what financial obligations his Department meets for the British Red Cross Society in connection with their work for prisoners of war?

Sir J. Grigg: A contribution at the rate of £40,000 a year is at present made to

the British Red Cross Society towards the administrative costs of their pacel-packing centres for prisoners of war. Approximately the whole of the re-packing of parcels from next-of-kin is also contributed from Army funds. No other direct financial assistance has been given from public funds for the work of the Prisoner of War Department, though certain additional financial obligations have been undertaken should circumstances arise which necessitate such help, and issues of articles of clothing are made in kind, when necessary, to supplement the Red Cross resources.

Miss Ward: Are the parcels which are now ordered from Canada paid for by the Government, and what indirect charges are borne by the Treasury?

Sir J. Grigg: I do not understand the question. I imagine that the parcels which are ordered from Canada are paid for, in the first instance, by the British Red Cross Society.

Miss Ward: Could I have an answer to the second part of my question?

Sir J. Grigg: That is the part which I do not understand; I am sorry.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

Youths (Clyde Shipyards).

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many boys between the ages of 16 and 18, employed in the Clyde shipyards, were recently registered as belonging to a youth organisation or an evening class; how many of these invited to an interview attended; and what provision for recreation or evening classes exist?

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): I am informed by the education authorities concerned that 1,996 boys employed in Clyde shipyards were registered as belonging to youth organisations or attending evening classes: 929 boys who were invited for interview attended. Adequate provision is made for evening classes in the areas where the vast majority of these boys reside, and facilities for recreation are steadily being improved.

Clyde Shipyard Directors (Prosecution).

Mr. McNeil: asked the Lord Advocate whether he can now make a statement on the complaints by Clyde shipyard


workers against some of the directors of the yard who, the workmen allege, used wood, steel, special metals and skilled workmen to construct domestic shelters,. garden gates', and lengths of rail for a miniature railway?

Mr. Johnston: My right hon. and learned Friend has asked me to reply on his behalf. Proceedings have been taken against two directors and a foreman in respect of alleged improper use of certain materials. While these proceedings are pending the Lord Advocate is unable to make any further statement.

Mr. McNeil: Can my right hon. Friend say the stage at which the proceedings have reached? Have the men been charged? I do not think that that is in any way infringing upon the usual procedure.

Mr. Johnston: Not only were they charged but they appeared before the sheriff on 15th July, and the trial will be in September.

Mr. McNeil: Can my right hon. Friend say whether they appeared in public court, and, if they did not, why not?

Mr. Johnston: I cannot answer that Question without notice.

Mr. McKinlay: Why, when a workman takes a piece of spare wood is he prosecuted and his name broadcast, and yet the names of these people are suppressed and the public do not know who they are?

Mr. Johnston: All I can answer is that the Question did not appear on the Order Paper, and I am replying for my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate.

Mr. McNeil: Surely, it is not unreasonable to ask my right hon. Friend what stage the proceedings have reached and for him in his answer to tell us what proceedings have taken place?

Mr. Johnston: I have already answered that question and said that the men appeared before the sheriff on 15th July, and that the trial will be in September.

Mobile Women Workers (Transference to England).

Mr. Buchanan: asked the Minister of Labour whether he can state the number of women who have been transferred

from Scotland to England for work on munitions by his Department; and whether he is aware that a number transferred, or about to be transferred, have been trained in the Stow College and could get equally important work locally but are not allowed to take such work?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): The number of women transferred from Scotland to England since April, 1941, when the Registration for Employment Order came into force, until the end of June, 1942, is 7,793. This figure includes women outside registration age and trainees. Women trainees from Stow College who are mobile are sent to priority jobs in areas where the shortage of workers is most acute. Local vacancies are filled by immobile women who cannot leave home.

Mr. Buchanan: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that a Miss Konopate, 151, Rutherglen Road, Glasgow, applied to the local tribunal against the decisions proposing to transfer her to England for work; that her mother is in far from good health, having been injured by an air-raid when her home was damaged; that Miss Konopate's only two brothers are serving with His Majesty's forces; and, as her transfer will leave the mother at home alone, will he reverse this decision which is causing serious concern?

Mr. Tomlinson: This decision was given by the hardship tribunal and cannot be altered by my right hon. Friend. He is arranging, however, to have the matter brought by appeal before the umpire who is the final authority.

Mr. Buchanan: Is my hon. Friend aware that in this case the girl's mother was severely injured during a blitz, and ought not these tribunals to be much more sympathetic?

Mr. Tomlinson: It is because all these facts have been brought to the notice of my right hon. Friend that he is appealing to the umpire.

Mr. Buchanan: I give notice, in view of the terrible treatment meted out to this and similar cases, that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment. It is becoming a farce, as was the "genuinely seeking employment" Regulation in the old days.

Mr. Maxton: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Notice has already been given that this matter will be raised on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — FUEL AND POWER.

Firewood.

Sir Samuel Chapman: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will consider, in consultation with the President of the Board of Education, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the appropriate landowners and the local authorities concerned, organising, during the suggested stay-at-home summer holidays, parties to gather wood suitable for firewood in districts throughout England and Scotland, and arrange for the storage, sale and disposal of such wood under conditions which would benefit cottagers, small householders and others in villages and the smaller towns during the next winter and also save household burning of a quantity of coal?

Sir Frank Sanderson: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will consider means by which the large amount of branches, dead wood and tree trunks suitable for firewood, which are to be found in the woodlands in many parts of the country, could be collected and distributed, with a view to minimising consumption of household coal in country districts and to save transport?

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd George): In view of the shortage of labour and transport, and the very wide variations in local conditions, it is not practicable to organise on a uniform national basis the collection and distribution of waste wood for this purpose, but I have considered, in consultation with the other Government Departments concerned, the organisation of schemes for the collection of waste timber from woods and sawmills with a view to creating reserve stocks held centrally in appropriate districts. Our policy is therefore to enlist the assistance of local authorities to this end, and arrangements were made last autumn whereby any local authority could be empowered to undertake the necessary work on behalf of my Department. A number of schemes are already in operation. Further discussions are now taking place with several local authorities as a

result of information recently obtained concerning the location of available supplies of surplus sawmill timber, and so far as Scotland is concerned, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has recently made a fresh approach to local authorities on the subject.

Sir F. Sanderson: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware of the tens of thousands of tons of broken timber lying waste in the county of Sussex, and can he possibly exert pressure upon the local authorities to do something so as to sell all this timber to towns to help to avoid a coal shortage during the forthcoming winter?

Major Lloyd George: Discussions are now taking place with the authorities, but I told my hon. Friend that some schemes are in operation, and I hope that many more will result.

Sir Henry Morris-Jones: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware of the present profiteering in firewood, 50s. per ton being charged for sawn-up fir slabs as against 10s. pre-war; and whether he will control the price and enable the poor to make provision for the winter?

Major Lloyd George: In consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply I am considering the possibility of controlling the price of fuel wood; inquiries so far show that costs and prices vary greatly according to local circumstances, and where there is heavy cost of collection and cutting a price of 50s. a ton may not be unreasonable.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that in the case mentioned in the Question, before the war this wood was given away free by the timber yard as being useless, and that now they are charging 50s. a ton for it?

Major Lloyd George: I think the hon. Gentleman is talking of rather exceptional circumstances. Even if it was given away free, it had to be shifted, and one of the very heavy costs in the distribution of timber is the bringing of the timber from the site where it is felled.

Rationing.

Major Petherick: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power why he intends to implement the proposal that fuel overseers should withhold from householders


a proportion of coupons in respect of the use of gas and electricity, in view of the fact that such a proposal, if enforced, would remove the right implicit under the Annex Plan of householders to spread their coupons in such proportions as they may think fit over coal, gas, electricity, etc., within the total ration?

Major Lloyd George: A proposal on the lines of that described by my hon. Friend is favoured by the gas and electricity industries, but provision would be made to allow householders to vary their consumption of different fuels. I have no present intentions in the matter. Any question of varying the plan in the Annex to the White Paper on Coal would hot arise unless there were a decision to impose rationing, and, as my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council explained to the House on 10th June last, the Government will not bring any fuel rationing scheme into operation without prior intimation to the House and opportunity for debate if that should be desired.

Sir H. Williams: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, in connection with the proposed Annex Fuel Rationing Plan, coupons and points have yet been printed?

Major Lloyd George: No, Sir, apart from the personal fuel coupons which form part of the 1942–43 Clothing Book, already in the hands of the public.

Gas-Producer Plants.

Mr. Colegate: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will give an assurance that the necessary anthracite or coke will be allowed for gas-producer plants being fitted to motor-cars used for business purposes?

Major Lloyd George: Supplies of solid fuel will be available for vehicles driven by gas-producer plant in so far as I and my Noble Friend the Minister of War Transport are satisfied of the essential nature of the work oil which such vehicles are engaged and within limits of number to be agreed between us.

Economy Campaign.

Mr. Colegate: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware that there is a widespread feeling that the cam-

paign to effect economy in the consumption of fuel is not being conducted with sufficient drive; and whether he will make any statement as to the further steps he proposes to take with regard to this matter?

Major Kimball: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what measures he has taken in the publicity campaign to reduce domestic fuel consumption; whether those measures have been successful and to what extent; and what further measures he intends to take?

Major Lloyd George: As the reply is rarther long I will, with the permission of my hon. Friends, have it circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the reply:

It was on Sunday, 28th June, in a broadcast that I launched the fuel economy campaign which I am conducting in co-operation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Information. Whilst it is too early to gauge its effect, there is ample evidence that the public generally are already alive to the urgent need for economy. The B.B.C. are co-operating on a generous scale. The importance of fuel economy has been constantly stressed by announcers and other speakers, and hints on fuel economy are included almost daily in the Kitchen Front talks. Advertising has been started in the Press, both national and provincial, and in general there has been strong editorial support all over the country for which I am most grateful. The possibilities of the films as a vehicle for propaganda are being taken into account; as a beginning, during the week ended 13th July, a series of "Fuel Flashes" began in all cinemas. Two special exhibitions on fuel economy have recently been started and more are to be opened in the near future. A series of posters will shortly appear on hoardings throughout the country.

In the industrial sphere, which is certainly no less important that the domestic, the Fuel Efficiency Committee of my Department has been in close touch for the last nine months with all the big industries through their Trade Associations, and advisory committees are being set up in all regions, with panels of combustion experts whose advice will be available to all industrial consumers. The Committee's own staff of combustion engineers


are also doing valuable work in this sphere. A training scheme has been inaugurated with the collaboration of the Board of Education at some 45 universities and colleges throughout the country; over 4,000 men received training under the initial scheme, and it is likely that over 10,000 men will be trained as the scheme develops; the students are drawn from the engineering and boiler house staffs of industries.

All these activities in the industrial field are being constantly strengthened and extended and a memorandum on fuel economy, with a covering note by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Production, is now being printed for circulation to some 30,000 factories.

As regards future plans, it is the intention that the campaign shall be intensified week by week until the climax is reached with the approach of the colder weather. Full use will be made of all practical publicity methods.

An effective publicity campaign requires careful planning; experience proves that the value of propaganda is cumulative. It is essential that this campaign shall be well thought out. It is not enough merely telling people to save fuel. The public are entitled to know exactly how to save and when, and it is my intention, in close cooperation with my technical and scientific advisers, to give them all the help possible.

Cinemas (Hours of Opening).

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will examine the figures of attendances at cinemas between 12 noon and 3 p.m. on week-days to see if the returns are on an average low compared with the amount of electricity used, with a view to suggesting to the local authorities and representatives of the industry more economic hours of opening in those areas where such action is warranted?

Major Lloyd George: I understand that such attendance figures are not available. While I appreciate that some saving of electricity would be realised by the means suggested, I doubt if this would justify the restriction of recreational facilities and the additional congestion of transport in the evening rush hours.

Mr. Walkden: While the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has announced quite recently what the Cinema Exhibitors' Association have suggested in the way of economies, will he not take into account the opinions of the workpeople's representatives, who claim that not more than 20 per cent. of the seats in most areas are occupied when the cinemas commence before 3 p.m.? Is there not reasonable ground for effecting some economy on these lines?

Major Lloyd George: I am not anxious to interfere more than is necessary with recreational facilities, because they are extremely important. I am informed that, with regard to most of these cinemas, it is only in certain of the larger towns that they open before 2 p.m. In the other places, they do not. There are other methods of economising which they are now looking into and which will achieve far greater economies than could be achieved by this means.

Mr. Stokes: Do not the cinemas conduct most of their affairs in the dark?

Mining Royalties (Payments on Account).

Sir H. Williams: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power how many mining royalty owners have received interim payments and in what districts; where it is proposed to make further payments, and on what conditions they are made?

Major Lloyd George: Subject to the satisfactory completion of the appropriate application form the Coal Commission are prepared to make a payment on account of 10 per cent. of the draft valuation of a valued holding or of 1½ times the last year's income where the holding is income producing but has not been valued. Payments on account are made on the last day of each month; the first cheques were issued on 30th June in respect of 28 holdings situated in seven of the Valuation Regions.

Coal Merchants (Deliveries).

Mrs. Tate: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether it is proposed that small coal retailers may be restricted to a certain radius for deliveries; and whether similar restrictions are to be placed on co-operative societies?

Major Lloyd George: In cases where merchants are still delivering coal in any


manner which results in wastage of petrol, vehicles or man-power, steps can be and are being taken compulsorily to transfer the registrations concerned to merchants who are in a better position to effect delivery to the consumer, though not necessarily by fixing an arbitrary radius, beyond which deliveries may not be made. These principles apply equally to large as well as to small coal merchants, and to co-operative societies.

Mr. Mathers: If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman takes away the supply of coal from the co-operative societies, will he see that those to whom the supplying is given over will pay a dividend to the customer?

Employees (Economy Inducements).

Mr. Purbrick: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power what schemes have been framed, in consultation with industrial groups, to give part of the cash saved by fuel economy to employees?

Major Lloyd George: War-time conditions have made it more difficult to operate bonus schemes for stokers and for boiler house operatives. None the less, the Fuel Efficiency Committee have urged on the industrial groups they have been meeting, the importance of offering their employees an inducement to economise in the use of fuel. Several firms have started schemes of this kind with satisfactory results, and I hope that many others will follow their example.

Households (Notification of Changes).

Sir F. Sanderson: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware of the changes which are constantly taking place in the number of residents in a household due to evacuees returning home, evacuees being taken in, domestic staff and governesses being called up, members of a household taking up work in other parts of the country, deaths and other causes; and whether he desires the householder to advise the fuel controller when and as these changes take place?

Major Lloyd George: The answer to the first part of the Question is "Yes, Sir," and to the second part "No, Sir."

Domestic Coal Stocks.

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power why he is establishing a

reserve dump of coal at Solihull before residents have been able to obtain the authorised quantity for storage; and whether he will direct that local merchants shall receive all available supplies until admissible demands are satisfied?

Major Lloyd George: Reserve stocks of house coal are being created in a number of places, in addition to those already in existence, in order that, should there be serious difficulties over house coal supplies during next winter, some reserves may be available in consuming areas to assist those classes of consumer who, for physical or other reasons, are unable to lay in their own stocks. In my view, some reserves for this purpose must be created even though this should result in other householders not being able, for the time being, to obtain the full permitted stocks.

Sir J. Mellor: Does my right hon. and gallant Friend know that, as a result of this stacking, a large proportion of the coal is reduced to slack, and would it not be much more economical if the merchants were allowed to unload the trucks and distribute the coal for private storage?

Major Lloyd George: It is of vital importance that we should have stocks to fall back upon in case of emergency during next winter I am most anxious that those stocks should be there. I am satisfied that there is no greater deterioration in dumps of this sort than in any other dumps.

Sir J. Mellor: Would it not be better to fill the private storage first?

Major Lloyd George: As my hon. Friend knows, private storage up to a certain extent is allowed at the present time, but I am anxious that, for those people who have no means of stocking or storing, there should be sufficient dumps to supply them.

Gas and Electricity Undertakings (Statistics).

Mr. Daggar: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he will state the profits of the companies' and local authorities' gas undertakings in Great Britain in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1941, and the price paid per ton for coal, and similar particulars with regard to the generation of electricity and the production of coke?

Major Lloyd George: The desired information relating to 1937 was given in reply to a similar Question by my hon. Friend on 17th May, 1939. Subsequent information is available only for electricity undertakings for the year 1938. With the hon. Member's permission I will circulate this in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Bowles: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that in the City of Westminster street lights are kept on

AUTHORISED ELECTRICITY UNDERTAKINGS.


(1) COMPANY UNDERTAKINGS.


Year.
Capital expenditure at end of year.
Gross Surplus.
Appropriation of Gross Surplus.



Interest.
Dividends.
Depreciation and other purposes.





£
£
£
£
£


1938
…
…
240,574,617
20,481,645
3,067,833
8,008,426
9,405,386

Oral Answers to Questions — COST OF COAL.

The average cost per ton of coal and coke consumed at generating stations of all authorised undertakers during 1937–38 and 1938–39 was 18s. 6d. and 20s. 6d. respectively, these figures being inclusive of the costs of handling, preparation and ash disposal. In both years the quantity of coke represents less than 2 per cent. of the total coal tonnage.

Oral Answers to Questions — Household Fuel Form.

Major Kimball: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he is aware that many of the questionnaire forms recently issued through the Post Office for the return by householders do not bear any address beyond the words "Fuel Officer"; and will he make it clear that the duty of the householder is merely to post the form, and that the Post Offices will deliver it to the appropriate Fuel Officer?

Major Lloyd George: By repeated announcements in the Press and over the wireless I have made it clear that the household fuel form will be delivered to the appropriate Local Fuel Overseer if it is posted in the post box or Post Office

all day as well as all night? What does he propose to do about this?

Major Lloyd George: I am not aware of that. I will look into it.

Sir H. Williams: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that I wrote a letter to him on this subject three or four days ago?

Major Lloyd George: I am not aware of that.

Following is the information:

nearest to the premises to which it relates, whether or not the householder has been able to insert in the space provided on the form the address of the Local Fuel Overseer.

Mr. Colegate: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend consider enlisting the aid of the Women's Institutes all over the country in the domestic fuel economy campaign?

Major Lloyd George: I will consider any suggestion that is put forward.

Major Sir Jocelyn Lucas: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that it is very difficult for people to find out where the local fuel office is, and that even policemen cannot tell them where it is?

Major Lloyd George: They do not have to ask policemen. If they listen to the announcements over the wireless or read the directions on the forms, they will know that if they put the form in a nearby post-box, the Post Office will deliver it to the Fuel Overseer.

Oral Answers to Questions — Shops (Artificial Lighting).

Mr. Purbrick: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the fact that many shops have permanent blackout, thus necessitating artificial lighting, he will prohibit this and make the closing time always precede the blackout time?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): I sympathise with the object which my hon. Friend has in view, but the many factors which have to be taken into account in determining both the type of blackout and the closing times of shops preclude such general action as he suggests. Regional Commissioners have power, after consultation, to make orders fixing special closing hours in winter in localities where circumstances require such action.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

Administrative Delays.

Mr. Colegate: asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that there is a widespread impression that his directions as to the avoidance of administrative delays are now largely ignored; and will he consider recirculating the directions to all responsible officers in all Departments?

The Deputy-Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is not aware of the general impression to which my hon. Friend refers. He does not think that any useful purpose would be served by issuing further general directions. He will, of course, not hesitate to have inquiry made into any specific complaints which are brought to his notice.

Public Relations and Press Officers.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in all cases when appointments as Press, publicity or public relations officers to Government Departments are made, the Institute of Journalists, the National Union of Journalists, the Newspaper Pro-

praetors Association, the Newspaper Society, and other professional bodies are consulted as to the qualifications of candidates; and whether he will consider setting up an independent selection panel, including representatives of these bodies, to advise upon any future appointments and upon the qualifications of present holders of such positions?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): The final selection of Press, publicity or public relations officers for Government Departments is and must remain the responsibility of the Departments concerned. The Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour and National Service maintains a list of persons with qualifications for such appointments, and wherever a vacancy is notified the Appointments Department makes a selection of candidates, after consultation with the Journalists' Advisory Committee, which consists of members of the profession.

Mr. De la Bère: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that this country has some of the finest journalists in the world? Why do we not make use of the very best we have? Further, is he not aware that this chaos, muddle and confusion will go on just as long as Departments are allowed to go on as haphazardly as they please?

Sir H. Williams: Is it not true that there are more journalists in Government Departments than on all the London newspapers?

Mr. De la Bère: In view of the very unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter and probe it properly on the first possible opportunity. It is a matter not lightly to be dismissed; indeed, it cannot be dismissed at all.

Oral Answers to Questions — WOMEN'S SERVICES (WELFARE).

Mr. Higgs: asked the Prime Minister whether welfare officers are appointed to all units of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and other Women's Services; and, if not, will he proceed to do this forthwith?

Mr. Attlee: While the detailed organisation necessarily varies from one Service to another, I am advised that officers


specially charged with responsibility for welfare are available to all units of the three Women's Services.

Mr. Higgs: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that girls have been sent away from their homes, discharged and left stranded? Does he consider that a right state of affairs?

Mr. Attlee: If the hon. Gentleman has any case in mind, perhaps he will bring it to the notice of the Service to which the girl in question belonged.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES (CO-OPERATION).

Major C. S. Taylor: asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider appointing a commander-in-chief having operational control of all Fighting Services in every theatre of operation in which British Forces are engaged?

Mr. Attlee: The Prime Minister does not wish to add at present to what he said on this and kindred topics last week.

Major Taylor: asked the Prime Minister whether he is satisfied with the present arrangements for Army and Air Force combined training and action in this country; and whether any modifications to present arrangements are receiving active consideration?

Mr. Attlee: The joint training of the Royal Air Force and the Army is proceeding satisfactorily on the lines indicated in the reply which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave to a similar Question by my hon. and gallant Friend on 7th July. The methods and scope of the training are constantly being studied with a view to improvement.

Major Taylor: asked the Prime Minister whether the officer Commanding Army Co-operation Command is an Army or a Royal Air Force officer; and whether the officer commanding the Fleet Air Arm is a naval or a Royal Air Force officer?

Mr. Attlee: The Army Co-operation Command is a Command of the Royal Air Force. Its Commander-in-Chief is an air marshal. The Senior Air Staff Officer is a brigadier, and the staff of the Command includes both Army and Royal Air Force personnel. The Fleet Air Arm is not a separate Service or command but an integral part of the Royal Navy. The

Fleet Air Arm units are controlled by the various naval commanders-in-chief and flag officers at home and abroad, in the same manner as other units of the Navy.

Major Taylor: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be better now for the Army to have complete control of Army Co-operation Commands and that Army Co-operation Commands should be commanded by Army officers in Army uniform responsible to the War Office?

Mr. Attlee: That is another question. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will put it down.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Is it not a fact that the two questions are completely different and that what may be perfectly right for the Fleet Air Arm in respect to the Navy is not necessarily right for the Army?

Mr. Attlee: The hon. Gentleman is quite right.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE.

Small Savings.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will explain what accounts for the decline in the total amount invested weekly in the Government securities open to small investors at a time when total wages are at their highest?

Sir K. Wood: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Hornsey (Captain Gammans), on 21st July. [Official Report, Column 1411, Volume 381.]

Mr. Craven-Ellis: Can my right hon. Friend acount for the small amount now being contributed to savings?

Sir K. Wood: I replied on 17th July to the effect that the decrease in subscriptions was due mainly to the incidence of holidays and to the fact that National Savings Groups had concentrated recently on expanding their organisation. I also said that the sale of small denomination certificates, which affords a rough guide to savings, had run at the rate of approximately 17 per cent. higher than at the corresponding period of last year and that I hoped there would be an increase.

Mr. Stokes: Is not the real explanation that people are beginning to see through all this nonsense?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir.

Mr. A. Hopkinson: Does it not show that this advertising campaign simply does what all such campaigns do—anticipate the market and lead to an inevitable slump?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir, I do not think so.

Government Borrowing.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total amount loaned by the Bank of England and the joint stock banks on short term in Treasury deposit receipts and Treasury bills; and what is the annual interest charge paid on these amounts?

Sir K. Wood: The total of Treasury deposit receipts outstanding on 25th July was £654,500,000, representing deposits by the Clearing and other Banks. Interest is payable at the rate of 1⅛ per cent. per annum. Treasury bills are transferable by delivery, and I cannot say what proportion of the total outstanding is held in any particular hands. The current rate of discount is approximately 1 per cent. per annum.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: Is it not time that this war was financed on a system which would be more beneficial to the people as a whole instead of to a small and privileged class?

Sir K. Wood: The system of financing this war gives many causes for satisfaction.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: I accept that, but I must ask my right hon. Friend again whether he does not think there is still room for improvement in order to ease the burden on the taxpayer?

Sir K. Wood: There is always room for improvement. I have read my hon. Friend's publications on this matter, and I will continue to study them.

Note Holdings.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, to save increases in the note issue, he will consider urging private individuals and traders to reduce their holding of notes to the minimum and to retain as little cash as possible?

Sir K. Wood: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's desire to see holdings of notes with the public reduced to a minimum. As I have previously pointed out, large individual holdings and unduly large holdings by traders expose the holders to a real risk of loss. Moreover, that risk is quite unnecessary in view of the opportunities of depositing the notes in Savings Banks or other banks, all of which offer facilities for ready withdrawal in case of need.

Mr. De la Bère: Is it not a fact that many people hold notes because they do not want to make returns for Income Tax? Will my right hon. Friend consider issuing new notes and calling in the old ones?

Sir K. Wood: My hon. Friend might give me any particulars that he can.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his reply, will he consider forgoing the Stamp Duty on cheques in order to encourage their use instead of cash, say for amounts over £3?

Sir K. Wood: I doubt if I could do that.

Sir H. Williams: Is it not possible that people holding notes think they will not be rentiers and that there will be less danger from the Minister of Labour?

Civil Defence Personnel (Death Duties).

Flight-Lieutenant Challen: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, as the duty of an air-raid warden or a member of the Auxiliary Fire Service is such as to entitle him to the same relief from Death Duties as a member of the Home Guard, he will take steps to provide accordingly?

Sir K. Wood: I would remind my hon. and gallant Friend that members of the Civil Defence Services such as air-raid wardens or members of the Auxiliary Fire Service are covered by the provisions of Section 46 of the Finance Act, 1941. Under that Section the estate of any person who dies from injuries caused within 12 months of his death, by the operations of war is entitled to the same relief from Death Duties as is given to all members of the Forces by Section 38 of the Finance Act, 1924.

National War Bonds.

Sir Stanley Reed: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amounts borrowed to date by means of the current issue of National War Bonds?

Sir K. Wood: The amount raised by the issue of 2½ per cent. National War Bonds, 1949–51, up to 25th July, 1942, was about £506,000,000. The House will remember that these Bonds were first issued in October, 1941, and that since 1st February, 1942, a second series of the Bonds called "A Series" has been on offer. The first interest payment on the "A Series" will fall due on 1st August, 1942, on which date they will be amalgamated with the original issue. I have decided that for the present the issue of National War Bonds on the existing terms shall continue, but Bonds issued on or after 1st August will be designated "B Series." The first interest payment on the new Series will be due on 1st February, 1943, on which date the Bonds will be amalgamated with the earlier issues.

Alcoholic Liquors (Statistics).

Mr. Rhys Davies: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will state the public grounds on which he refuses to disclose particulars of the consumption of alcoholic liquors and the duties levied thereon and also the quantities of materials used in brewing and distilling, seeing that these particulars have been published annually since 1910 and in even greater detail during the war years 1914 to 1918?

Sir K. Wood: There are many figures which were published during the last war whose publication has been deemed undesirable during the present war. I am advised that the particulars available concerning the consumption of alcoholic liquors and the materials used in brewing and distilling relate to alcohol of all kinds. It would be against the public interest to publish any figures from which an estimate of the consumption or production of industrial alcohol could be obtained.

Mr. Davies: Why does the right hon. Gentleman refuse to disclose the operations of the drink traffic when the Select Committee on National Expenditure exposes practically everything in relation to other industries?

Sir K. Wood: That is another story.

Civil Service Pensions.

Mr. William Brown: asked the Fnancial Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that the cost of maintaining a person in a Poor Law institution is 28s. a week, he will ensure

that no Civil Service pensioner shall be given a pension less than this amount?

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Crookshank): No, Sir. The Superannuation Acts provide, broadly speaking, for a pension of one-eightieth of retiring pay for each year served, plus a lump sum of three times that amount, the minimum period of service for an award being ten years. His Majesty's Government are not prepared to introduce legislation, which would inevitably react on other pension systems, to modify the Civil Service pension system in the sense suggested by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Brown: Is not the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that in the last war, before the cost of living had risen to anything like the extent it has done in this war, provision was made for some relief to these poor folk, and does he intend that the present situation should go on indefinitely?

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Walkden.

Mr. Brown: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. May I have an answer to my Supplementary Question?

Captain Crookshank: I understand that this subject is shortly to be raised on the Adjournment by the hon. Member, so that there does not seem any reason for discussing it now.

Oral Answers to Questions — AFFORESTATION, WALES (ENGLISH OFFICIALS).

Mr. Richards: asked the right hon. and gallant Member for Rye, as representing the Forestry Commissioners, whether his attention has been called to the preponderating number of English officials employed on the forestry plantations in Wales; what is the reason for this; and will he see to it that this is redressed by the appointment of Welsh foremen?

Colonel Sir George Courthope (Forestry Commissioner): Sixty-three per cent. of the officials employed in Forestry Commission plantations in Wales are Welsh. Consequently there is not a preponderating number of English. Welsh officials are also employed in England, such interchanges being both desirable and necessary in the interests of the Forest Service as a whole.

Mr. Richards: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that, in view of the large number of Welsh employees, considerable inconvenience is involved through their having English officials placed over them?

Sir G. Courthope: I am not aware of that.

Oral Answers to Questions — BROADCASTING (ANGLO-AMERICAN EXCHANGE OF SPEAKERS).

Mr. Bossom: asked the Minister of Information whether, now that arrangements have been made to permit British speakers to broadcast regularly in the United States of America, he will invite the United States of America to send representatives here and extend to them similar privileges for broadcasting over the British Broadcasting Corporation?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information (Mr. Thurtle): British speakers have been heard from time to time on the radio in the United States of America, but I do not know of any new arrangements for a regular series of broadcasts by such speakers. Simi-larly, there are many leading American visitors to this country who are invited to broadcast for the British Broadcasting Corporation. My right hon. Friend is very much in favour of these exchanges and does what he can to encourage them on all occasions.

Mr. Bossom: Can my hon. Friend make some arrangement whereby there is a regular time every day when American broadcasts can be heard over the B.B.C. by our people?

Mr. Thurtle: I can give an undertaking that we will give consideration to the question.

Mr. Rhys Davies: Is it not a fact that all those who are chosen to give talks over the wireless are supporters of the Government?

Mr. Thurtle: That is certainly not the case.

Oral Answers to Questions — SERVICE WOMEN (VOTING FACILITIES).

Miss Cazalet: asked the Home Secretary whether he is yet in a position to

make a statement with regard to granting the same facilities for voting to women serving in His Majesty's Forces as those already granted to men?

Mr. Peake: Examination of the legal technicalities has shown that the question whether the existing law as to registration of absent voters covers all the classes of women in question is not free from doubt. It is important to remove such doubt without delay and consideration is being given to the quickest method of making the necessary amendment of the law so as to make it clear that the same facilities are available for women members of the Forces as are available for men.

Miss Cazalet: Is my hon. Friend aware of the satisfaction with which his answer will be received among all members of the women's Services? May I ask, in view of the very long time it has taken to make this very easy decision, whether the necessary alterations in the law will be made before the Recess?

Mr. Peake: I can assure my hon. Friend that the alterations will be made at the earliest possible moment, and that the Home Office will not rest until this grievance has been remedied.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES (PENSIONS AND GRANTS).

Mr. Thorne: asked the Minister of Pensions the number of disabled pensioners, showing, separately, details of total disablement, partial disablement, lesser disablement and limbless men; and the amount of pension paid to each section?

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): The total number of disabled persons to whom pension is being paid by my Department is approximately 448,000, of whom nearly 38,000 are in receipt of pension at the rate for total disablement. I regret that it is not possible to analyse the remaining 410,000 into the categories of partial and slight disablement but included in the total figure are 32,500 limbless cases. The total expenditure by way of pension is £23.4 million a year, of which £4.5 million a year is being paid to those in receipt of pension at the total disablement rate.

Oral Answers to Questions — CATERING TRADES (REGULATION).

Sir Leonard Lyle: asked the Minister of Labour whether he intends to apply his proposed wages and hours legislation to those sections of the catering industry now defined as domestic; and whether it is also his intention to deal with all classes of domestic workers?

Mr. Tomlinson: My right hon. Friend is at present considering the position of all classes of workers in the catering trades, but his proposals are not intended to apply to private domestic service.

FIDUCIARY NOTE ISSUE (INCREASE).

Sir K. Wood: It is customary to acquaint the House forthwith of changes in the Fiduciary Note Issue. I have, therefore, to inform the House that acting under the power conferred by Section 8 of the Currency and Bank Notes Act, 1928, as subsequently amended, the Treasury have authorised an increase in the amount of the Issue by £50,000,000 to £880,000,000 as from to-day. The Treasury Minute will be laid, in due course, before Parliament.

Mr. Bellenger: Has the Chancellor any explanation to offer for these continued increases?

Sir K. Wood: Yes, Sir. I think the principal causes are higher earnings, savings in the form of notes by workers not used to banks, the use of cash instead of cheques for various reasons, and the difficulties arising from evacuation and service in the Armed Forces.

Mr. De la Bère: Will my right hon. Friend look into the reasons for the use of cash instead of cheques? He gave me a polite little snub when I asked him to look into this matter on another Question. An angry answer never helps an argument.

PRIVATE NOTICE QUESTION.

Mr. J. Dugdale: On a point of Order I put a Private Notice Question to the Prime Minister, asking if his attention had been called to a speech—

Mr. Speaker: I had a Private Notice Question submitted to me by the hon. Member, but I could not accept it. I cannot allow the hon. Member to put it in the form of a point of Order.

Mr. Dugdale: While not seeking to put the Question, may I ask you, Sir, whether it is possible in any way to get a statement from the Prime Minister in his position as Chairman of the Conservative Party?

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid I cannot help the hon. Member in regard to that.

PRIVILEGE.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I beg to submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that an imputation has been made against a Committee of this House, and that it constitutes a breach of Privilege. The imputation is contained in a speech made by the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Kendall) on Saturday, 25th July. As reported in the "Sunday Times" newspaper of 26th July, the speech contains the following passage:
Very early on in the inquiry of the Public Accounts Committee, the chairman of that committee was asked on what ground this company had been chosen for investigation. The chairman gave a definite refusal to answer this question. Sometimes I wonder whether this report is an inspired criticism. It is peculiar, in view of this company's exceptional production record, that it should be one of live chosen out of the original 45 for inclusion in the first report, and that now out of live my company is receiving the full blast of publicity.
In the 13th edition of Erskine May, it states on page 93:
Scandalous charges or imputations directed against members of a Select Committee are directed against the House itself.
I am raising this matter as Chairman of the Committee in question—the Public Accounts Committee. It would, of course, be quite out of Order for me to go into the merits of the case or discuss the findings of the Committee in any way. I submit, however, to you, Mr. Speaker, with respect, that the passage in question is most clearly and unmistakably an imputation against the Committee, in that it accuses them of having produced a Report to this House which is an inspired criticism; that is to say, a Report not based solely on a bona fide investigation of the case. The fact that this view is a reasonable leading of the words in question is borne out by the report of the incident in the "Daily Mail" on 27th July, which states:
Some remark has been caused in political circles by a statement Mr. Kendall was reported to have made when he addressed his consti-


tuents at Grantham on Saturday. Mr. Kendall is reported to have said: 'Sometimes I wonder whether this report is an inspired criticism. The words attributed to Mr. Kendall have produced discussion because the Public Accounts Committee is a Select Committee of the House of Commons.
I submit that implications of such a nature have on many occasions in the past been regarded as a breach of Privilege. The most recent precedent that I have been able to obtain is in the Commons Journals, volume 188, 1932–3, page 126, where it is recorded:
Complaint was made to the House by Mr. Annesley Somerville, Member for Windsor, of the speech made by Alderman Bowles, reported in the 'Nottingham Journal' newspaper of Monday, 3rd April, 1933, and of the speech made by Alderman Huntsman, reported in the 'Nottingham Guardian' newspaper of the same day, passages of which speeches he read to the House. Alderman Bowles declared, 'I have never been satisfied that we went before an impartial tribunal, and I think Nottingham's case was unfairly dealt with,' Alderman Huntsman spoke of the 'stupid and persistent cross-examination of Sir Bernard Wright' and made other reflections on the procedure of the Committee. It was ordered that the speech of Alderman Bowles and the speech of Alderman Huntsman, reported in the 'Nottingham Guardian' newspaper, be referred to the Committee of Privileges.
I ask for your Ruling, Sir, whether a prima facie case has been made out in the present instance that a breach of Privilege has been committed.

Mr. Speaker: Will the right hon, and gallant Gentleman please bring the paper to the Table?

The CLERK (Sir GILBERT CAMPION) read the passage complained of.

Mr. Speaker: Considering what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has said, and the report in the newspaper named, it appears to me that a prima facie case of breach of Privilege has been made out.

Mr. Kendall: I received a telegram from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). This was the first intimation that I had been accused of a breach of Privilege. I have only been for 31 working days in the House and it is not and never has been my intention deliberately to affront the House by a breach of Privilege or of the Rules of the House. I apologise must sincerely if this is the case and place myself in the hands of Members of the House.

The Lord Privy Seal (Sir Stafford Gripps): In view of the hon. Member's statement, I beg to move,
That, in view of the apology made by the hon. Member for the County of Parts of Kesteven and Rutland (Grantham Division), this House will proceed no further in the matter.

Mr. Buchanan: I think the House is getting into such a stage that we shall hardly be able to open or shut our mouths without a question of breach of Privilege being raised.

Mr. Thorne: In consequence of what transpired a few minutes ago, may I ask whether a Member will be prevented from putting down a Question about this or a similar case?

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That, in view of the apology made by the hon. Member for the County of Parts of Kesteven and Rutland (Grantham Division), this House will proceed no further in the matter.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY).

Ordered,
That all outstanding Votes in the Civil Estimates and Estimates for Revenue. Departments, and Supplementary Estimates, 1912, except Class VI, Vote 5, Class VII, Vote 6, and Class X, Votes 9, 10 and 15, and all outstanding Votes in the Navy, Army and Air Estimates, 1942, be considered in Committee of Supply; that this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 14, Supplementary Estimates for New Services may be considered in Committee of Supply; that Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before the hour appointed for the interruption of Business; and that if the first two Votes shall have been agreed to by the Commitee of Supply before the hour at which the Chairman is directed by paragraph 6 of Standing Order No. 14 to put forthwith certain Questions, the Chairman shall proceed to put forthwith those Questions."—[Sir S. Cripps.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted at this day's Sitting from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[Sir S. Cripps.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

[19TH ALLOTTED DAY.]

Considered in Committee.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1942.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £1,083,630 be granted to His Majesty, to complete the charges for the following Departments connected with Civil Defence for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, namely:


Civil Estimates, 1942.


Class X, Vote 6, Ministry of Home Security
£90


Class X, Vote 5, Ministry of Health (War Services)
£90


Class III, Vote 1, Home Office
£1,083,450



£1,083,630 "

AGRICULTURE AND FOOD.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £2,382,732, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the charges for the following Departments connected with Agriculture and Food for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, namely:


Civil Estimates, 1942.


Class VI, Vote 7, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries
£2,382,552


Class X, Vote 1, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (War Services)
£90


Class X, Vote 4, Ministry of Food
£90



£2,382,732"

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): We are now approaching the third war-time harvest. I do not propose to try to forecast its results, because in these matters we are always at the mercy of the weather. I would, however, assure the Committee that everything that

man can do is being and has been done to ensure its being as great a harvest as possible. When I last addressed the House, in March, I indicated the increased tillage area and the increased acreage of the principal crops. I also suggested that I thought the time had come, taking the country as a whole, when we had attained the peak of our cropping expansion and that from now on we should, while maintaining our efforts, endeavour to intensify production from the land already in cultivation. Since then the calls on our shipping have been largely increased, both actually, and more especially in relation to the resources available. Therefore I have found myself compelled to make a further appeal to farmers and to ask them at one and the same time to concentrate on increasing the current rate of production and, for the year 1943, to increase substantially the tillage area of the country, and particularly the land under wheat, potatoes and vegetables.
While I am speaking of potatoes, may I say that I know that a certain amount of waste has undoubtedly taken place, but I would remind the Committee that we grew potatoes as an insurance, and I would only ask hon. Members to imagine for one moment what they would be saying to-day if this country found itself in the same state as Germany, if we had had to reduce, during this summer, our potato ration to half the normal, with no guarantee that even that half was available, and if London, for instance, had found itself in the same position as Hamburg, entirely without potatoes from 2nd to 12th July, or Vienna, which was in the same state during the week ended 4th July. Clearly it is very desirable that we should have that insurance, and, if you are to have insurance on that scale, I am afraid some slight modicum of waste may occur from time to time.
I have asked the farmers for an increase in the tillage area in England and Wales of over 500,000 acres this year. I hope to get the bulk of that planted to wheat and I hope that some land that would otherwise have been planted to other crops, will also be planted to wheat, so that if the weather is reasonable, we ought to increase our wheat acreage in England and Wales next year by no less than 600,000 acres. In addition I have asked for a 10 per cent. increase in the acreage under potatoes, a further expansion in vegetables and the


maintenance of the very large acreage of sugar beet that we grew this year. At the same time, I am pressing for an increase in the production of milk. Dairy farmers, like other farmers, have responded well, and the results, so far, this year are encouraging, for in the first six months, despite a very unfavourable Spring, we actually produced over 10,000,000 gallons more milk than we did on the average in the three pre-war years and 13,000,000 gallons more than we did last year.
All this will, of course, require an enormous extra effort on the part of farmers and farm workers. They will have to work day in and day out, and if certain arrangements which we are at present discussing mature, they will be expected during this Autumn's ploughing season to work by night as well as by day. It will, I think, prove a formidable task, but I believe it can be done. I think one of the most remarkable things in connection with the efforts during the last two years of those engaged in agriculture has been that they have attained and exceeded the goals which we set them, in spite of a very definite limitation of resources. The total number of men and women employed in agriculture has increased only by a very small percentage, and that increase has been offset by the change-over from skilled to unskilled labour and from male to female labour, as indeed has been the case in other industries. But in the case of agriculture this change has been much more difficult than in ordinary industry, because the farms of this country are small and many are family farms and it is much more difficult, under those conditions, to change over and to dilute with female labour. Nevertheless, as an indication of what has been done, I may say that the Women's Land Army has, in the last four months, proceeded every month from record to record, and has got over 40,000 at work to-day, compared with some 15,000 only last year.
As regards tractors and other implements, there again, as in the case of labour, the Government have to balance the competing war needs. We have had some increase in tractor strength but nothing like as great, naturally, as a Minister of Agriculture would like. It becomes therefore essential to see that the tractors and implements that we have are worked to the fullest advantage

and county war agricultural committees have been instructed to see that the heavy crawler tractor type of which we are particularly short is concentrated on heavy work and that all available machines, not only those in the hands of committees and contractors but those in the hands of private users as well, are used to the full. The same thing is true of fertilisers. Supplies of fertilisers are limited. I hate to have to introduce a rationing scheme or limitation but it is essential to see that the limited supplies we have are used for the crops that need them most and this year we have had to introduce a rationing scheme which will, I hope, work reasonably well.
In addition, we have to try to prevent any waste. I still believe that the country is to some extent under-stocked. I have been exhorting farmers to make the maximum use of the by-products of their crops such as straw, sugar beet tops, etc., and also of the remaining grassland, because livestock has been the backbone of British agriculture, not only in England but also in Scotland, and we have to try to ensure that every farmer keeps the maximum head of livestock on his farm that he can feed with his own resources, without of course encroaching on the land that has to be devoted to the growing of crops for direct human consumption. While I can lay down the general rules and can give a general lead to farmers, the success of the whole policy depends, of course, on the extent to which the individual farmer, working on his own farm, can adapt his farming practice to the new requirements. His success is conditioned by his knowledge, by the size of the farm, by its equipment, by the layout of the buildings and so forth. Clearly, there is a field for infinite variety and also scope for infinite progress.
The Committee will, no doubt, remember that I said last year that I had set up a new body, called the Agricultural Improvement Council, to see whether we could not get the results of research adopted and utilised more quickly in ordinary farming practice. At the same time, we made some alterations in the constitution and duties of the Agricultural Research Council. One should not, of course, count one's chickens before they are hatched, but I think we happen to have hit on a piece of machinery which will produce results of great value to agriculture and to the country. Perhaps the


Committee would be interested if I told them briefly of what we are doing. The work of the Agricultural Research Council and that of the Agricultural Improvement Council are, of course, complementary one to the other. The Agricultural Research Council must ask itself every day, "Are we doing everything in our power to see that the research organisation is properly staffed and equipped to obtain the maximum possible knowledge and relate it to the needs of agriculture? "The Agricultural Improvement Council should be asking itself every day, "Are we doing everything in our power to see that the results achieved by the Agricultural Research Council are either applied to agriculture or else given the necessary opportunity of showing whether their application would be of advantage to agriculture? "By the very nature of things, as the Committee will see, these two bodies are bound to some extent to overlap and we have tried to avoid the evils of such overlapping by appointing a certain number of members of each body to be members of the other. In addition there are frequent meetings of the two secretariats.
We are faced with the difficulty that agricultural research is, of its very nature, a long-term job. It is subject to the restrictions imposed by the seasons. If you want to carry out full-scale trials with a crop, you can only do one field trial a year, and even in the case of animals and animal nutrition, although not so liable to interference by the weather, it is still the case that there is often a long gap between some promising discovery in the laboratory and its final testing in the field. In addition, there is, both in this country and in other agricultural countries, the factor to be remembered that we are dealing not with a comparatively small number of firms in an individual industry but with a very large number of individual farmers, for the most part small farmers, enjoying comparatively small incomes.
In this country the problem is further complicated by the immense variety of soils, of climate and of other geophysical factors, apart from the difference in size of farms and differing types of farmers. That is one of the reasons why, for example, this country went in for so many different types of ploughs, which are numbered not by tens or scores, but

by hundreds. This is one of the main difficulties that face us in trying to reduce the different types of plough to more manageable proportions. I believe that the different types number no fewer than 850. In most other countries by contrast there is a comparatively small number of farming types and more uniformity of soil, of farm and of agricultural knowledge and resources on the part of the farmer. In the United Kingdom there are two further complications. It is very usual in my experience to find that if you discuss any one problem with farmers from different parts of the country they talk in almost completely different languages, so that an explanation of a process which is applicable to one part of the country may seem complete nonsense to farmers in another part. Endless confusion has been caused in the past and great disservice has been done to the cause of science by people advocating new methods as though they were of universal application. Another complication which is peculiar to this country is that in any one branch of farming, such as dairying, we find successful farmers practising very different systems according to the varying sizes of their farms and herds.
The result of all this was that the Agricultural Improvement Council early came to the conclusion that what we had to do was to decentralise the task of trying to apply the results of research to agriculture. That is being made the basis of our organisation. It is, too, to be remembered that, in this country at all events, agriculture is not a science so much as an art and craft, apart from being a business, and that good farming has to be learned by observation and experiment. The progressive farmer who keeps in touch with modern agricultural knowledge and who is prepared to consider how the results of research can be applied on a commercial scale on his own farm is of the greatest possible value in any community because he will gradually by his example spread the knowledge of scientific results. The ordinary practical working farmer is much more likely to copy one of his successful neighbours than he is to pay attention to some information given by someone, however knowledgeable, who has not had the same experience of putting his theories to practical tests.
Therefore, the Agricultural Improvement Council decided, in addition to arranging tests of new methods, new


technique or new pieces of agricultural machinery, to concentrate on expanding the advisory work in the different counties, and, above all, arranging practical demonstrations not merely on two or three farms in a county belonging to a farm institute, but on many average farms, right down to farms in individual parishes. They are equally and rightly impressed with the danger of trying to use modern agricultural research as a substitute for, instead of as a supplement to, sound agricultural farming practice. We often tend to think that all farmers are aware of sound agricultural principles and practice although they may not always put them into operation. I am afraid that is not the case. Even in arable districts there are large numbers of farmers who are not aware of good farming practice, and in the areas in England which were predominantly under grass before the war we find a complete absence of knowledge of arable husbandry among both the farmers and their men. Therefore, we decided that we should have to pay much more attention than has been done in past years to trying to get sound systems of farming adopted, based not only on sound practice but on modern agricultural knowledge and suited to the different types of farming and the different soils in different parts of the country.
I have had an opportunity in the last few weeks of seeing these new methods in practice. I have attended a large number of demonstrations which have been organised by county committees, and I have been greatly struck by the keenness of the chairmen and members of the demonstration sub-committees of the war agricultural committees, and also by the excellent attendances of farmers at these demonstrations and their obvious anxiety to pick up tips and wrinkles. In one case where the demonstration extended over three days I was encouraged to learn of quite a number of farmers who had taken the trouble to attend on all three days because they had not had time on one day to pick up everything that was available. The Committee will realise that the system is only in embryo; it has only been going for some weeks. The demonstrations we have staged up to now have ranged from demonstrations on large farms attached to farm institutes to farms that last year were derelict and have been taken over by committees and are

now growing fine crops; from farms belonging to members of the district committees to visits by farmers to a neighbouring farm in their parish with a view subsequently to having public discussions about their neighbours results. What we are aiming at above all is the avoidance of unnecessary frills and complications and something which will get into the farmer's mind the necessity for sound farming practice coupled with modern knowledge.
In addition, other activities of the Agricultural Improvement Council have included setting-up the Agricultural Machinery Development Board, and moving the Agricultural Engineering Research Institute from Oxford to much better premises at Askham Bryan, in Yorkshire. Certain members of this Board who have inventive talent have formed a committee, irreverently known as the "Heath Robinson Committee," and they are engaged in helping farmers to work out a number of practical ideas for labour-saving devices which can be made by the farmers themselves with the help of the village blacksmith or carpenter. A committee under the chairmanship of Sir George Stapledon has been investigating the problems of ley farming and questions connected therewith, and also the question of adequate supplies of seeds from home sources. They have made a complete tour of England and Scotland and discussed practical problems with members of war agricultural committees and their executive officers. They have put in some interesting and valuable reports, the recommendations in which we are now actively following up. The question of seeds is an important one, for we have been practically dependent on overseas supplies, particularly from the Continent, and as these have been progressively cut off our difficulties have been enhanced. We are, however, putting the supply of seeds on a sound basis, and I hope that from now onwards we shall have adequate supplies. It takes a long time between the time when the land is originally prepared and when the seeds are available for planting. This work is definitely in hand now.
Another committee, under the chairmanship of Lord De La Warr, is investigating the present position and trying to discover remedies for the difficulties that affect upland and hill sheep farming. The


problem of improving derelict lands and heaths and marsh lands with peaty soils is under investigation. The problem of feeding our livestock and the advice to be given to farmers now that they can no longer obtain their accustomed pre-war supplies, has been under active investigation by various research institutes, and the tests required have made considerable demands on their staffs. Diseases affecting dairy cows are, of course, of particular importance in war time. We are now reaping the fruits of several years' research in dairying, and, in conjunction with the National Farmers Union and the National Veterinary Medical Association, have been able to launch a scheme for the control of bovine abortion, sterility and mastitis. In this we have been very materially helped by some researches that were made in the United States and some virus which they have sent over. The bringing back of large areas of grass land or derelict land into cultivation has accentuated certain problems of soil fertility. The chemists and plant physiologists of our research institutes have been actively engaged in attacking each of these new problems as they arose, and of course they have been very helpful in advising us how to make the maximum use of the limited amount of fertilisers that we can look forward to. Incidentally, the researches have produced some very interesting information concerning factors connected with plant nutrition.
We are endeavouring still further to increase the supply of lime and to improve its distribution, and in the last 12 months we have very nearly doubled the amount of lime applied to the land and have distributed just under 2,500,000 tons, very nearly double the quantity distributed the year before. Among the potential organic fertilisers which are not being used at present is sewage sludge. Between 500,000 and 1,000,000 tons of this are destroyed or disposed of each year at considerable cost to the ratepayers, with no financial return. The Agricultural Research Council are conducting some experiments to see whether we can make use of it alone or composted with other waste products. It is too early yet to forecast the results of these experiments, because, apparently, there is tremendous variety in the composition of the sludge from different towns, and it would be unwise to advocate its widespread use until we know the results of these trials, but it may well be that if we

are successful in finding a method of utilising this waste, it will be of enormous permanent advantage to the country and to the maintenance and the increase of soil fertility.
We have a sub-committee considering the question of artificial insemination and conducting trials on a field scale. This is a very good illustration, I think, of a result of research that requires full scale trials for some time before one can be absolutely certain that the method is suitable for adoption in general practice. We are conducting soil surveys, investigating dry rot in potatoes and, which is rather interesting, the best methods of mole draining, to meet the varying problems which are encountered in our endeavours to improve waterlogged land. Finally, there is the problem of plant pests, which is always with us. In this connection mycologists and entomologists and many of the research institutes are doing extremely valuable work with a view to controlling insects, fungi, viruses and worms which, if uncontrolled, would do immense damage to the war effort.
I was told that this Debate was to be cut short, and as many other hon. Members want to speak, I have, I am afraid, been rather sketchy in my account but I thought the Committee would be interested to hear what we have been doing along these lines. I think that the first year's experience of the working of this new piece of machinery holds out definite hopes that we shall be able to marry research and practice, and be able to ensure that all those scientists who have any contribution to make will be sure of receiving every opportunity and encouragement to give us all the help they can. There has lately been a great deal of talk about the need for more science in Government in general, and some people have been writing to the papers recently emphasising the need for more agricultural research in particular. I hope that what I have said will show that as far as agriculture is concerned, we are to-day making the maximum possible use of all the scientific agricultural knowledge that we can possibly lay our hands on.
As to the results, all I can say is that hon. Members can judge for themselves if, when travelling about, they will compare what the country looks like to-day with what it looked like two years ago. I think they will agree with me that


although a great deal remains to be done a very definite transformation has been made in two important respects, one the aesthetic and the other the practical. For long years we have been accustomed in this country, looking at permanent grass, to believe that the particular type of green which we saw all over the country was the most lovely. I think anybody who is now going about will realise that mixed farming has made the country much more beautiful, with an infinitely greater variety of colour, and that is perhaps some alleviation in these days of war. On the practical side we have succeeded in securing an immense increase in the output of food required for this country. We are being compelled to-day to grow for ourselves the bulky foods that up to now we had always counted upon importing from overseas. As I said, I am far from complacent, for while I believe farmers have achieved a great deal, I am confident that there is still much room for improvement, and scope for still further increase in production. I hope that the account which I have given of the attempt we are making to improve methods of farming by utilising all modern scientific knowledge will convince the Committee of the great possibilities still in front of us.

Mr. Barnes: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture always makes the review of his Department interesting and informative. The effort to marry science and practice in agriculture, of which he has given us an outline, deserves encouragement, and indicates one of the most useful developments which we have witnessed in the field of agriculture. I had intended to open with the last comment which was made by the Minister, in which he pointed to the changing face of the countryside in Great Britain. Anyone who travels a lot must be impressed with the new picture presented by the countryside. There is not much of interest in the trains and so one looks out of the window more than ever—when one can get to the window. It is a welcome sight to see the extent of cultivation to-day compared with the neglected patches of land with which we were so familiar in the past. We can measure, in the figures that the Department issue, the increase in arable cultivation from 12,000,000 acres to 18,000,000 acres, and that is no mean effort. In the past I have not hesitated to stand at this Box and criticise when I have felt that

the occasion warranted it. It gives me all the greater pleasure on this occasion to say from conviction, knowledge and observation that the food front generally is solidly based, not only in regard to production, but in regard to distribution. I include both 1he Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Agriculture, which are under review. It is encouraging to note the change that has taken place after three years of war. I shall endeavour to divide my remarks between the two Ministries. In view of the limited time at our disposal, we must all adopt the policy of the running commentary.
I should like to submit one large policy problem for the consideration of the Minister of Agriculture. It appears to fit in with the experiment he is making in connection with his Agricultural Improvement Council. Linking the present war position of agriculture with our past experience and what we hope will be the future position in this country, I say that it would indeed be ingratitude if we repeated after the war the mistakes that were made from 1920 onwards, when, by permitting the bottom to drop out of agricultural prices throughout the world, we undermined our whole economic structure. I recognise that we are holding up the food position in this country by a subsidy amounting to £125,000,000 a year, which money comes from the taxpayers. We have been able to increase substantially the volume of production, but we should not overlook the fact that we have not allowed the costs of that increased production to fall directly upon the consumer in the basic and primary commodities. When I deal with Ministry of Food matters I hope to show what a different picture there is on this occasion from that of last year.
Are the Research and Improvement Councils examining, noting and gaining experience, in order to be able to influence the change-over from war-time agricultural production to peace-time production? Examination of the sizes of farms indicates that, in round figures, 50 per cent. of the farms or holdings in this country are under 50 acres, and 75 per cent. are under 100 acres. In the controlled production and increased supervision which the Minister now projects for agriculture, and in the policy which the Ministry are developing flexibly and which enables them to deal with the matter


county by county and even soil by soil, are the necessary information and experience being built up in the Department, so that we shall be able to decide after the war, when we shall not be maintaining agriculture by the present method, but shall have to meet the impact of more normal conditions, what type of organisation different sizes of farms require and what methods are to be adopted to decide the type of efficiency that emerges from different sizes of farms? That is a very important point, and I should like the Minister to keep it in mind. I have always contended that if we are to put agriculture on a firm and prosperous basis in peace-time, we must ensure the maximum efficiency in production. That is why I welcome the decision of the Minister, and the outline which he gave to-day of his Research and Improvement Councils; that is the type of machinery that will aid British farmers in getting the maximum degree of efficiency.
The second point we have to bear in mind is that the type of crop that we produce by artificial methods to-day is not necessarily the type that we shall have to produce in the same proportion when we revert to peace-time conditions. Therefore, it occurs to me that the Research and Improvement Councils should be hard at work at the present moment determining the type of crop for which our soils are most suitable, and in which we can get the highest degree of efficiency in production, in view of our standard of living, of the type of article that yields the best price on the market. The other point is that if we are to keep a stabilised system in this country, we must learn the art of marrying the price of imported goods to the price of home produce. It appears to me that knowledge of the way in which that could be done with the proper protection of the consumer—in which the organisation I represent is always interested—is that the machinery and experience of the Ministries of Food and Agriculture should be retained, or at least embodied in the machinery of government, for the purpose of effecting this result.
I was very pleased at the Minister's statement that the production of milk is not to be neglected. Not only have we increased production, but we are going to increase it still more. It is all very well for the Minister to say that we must eat

more potatoes when there is a surplus, but he has a responsibility of indicating to the people recipes and methods. The rationing system must be so arranged that when there is a surplus of any commodity other commodities which assist in the increase of consumption must be released proportionately to enable that to be done. It is far better to have a surplus potato position than a deficiency. The Minister of Food and the Minister of Agriculture themselves have to take some blame for the position. I am informed that an unnecessarily large importation of potatoes from overseas and from Ireland was permitted to flood this market just when the early potatoes were coming on the market. I notice that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food looks surprised. If my information is incorrect, we shall no doubt get the right answer later on.
A point in connection with the forthcoming harvest is the problem of additional or voluntary labour. After three years of war we ought to have this matter on a better footing. I find considerable dissatisfaction among farmers with Italian and prisoners' labour. With regard to soldiers released from the Forces and the use of Service labour, the payment of money direct to the Service concerned, instead of to the individual, appears to create some difficulty. With regard to school labour, farmers from time to time are still being charged, in public statements and in the Press, with utilising cheap child labour. I feel that after three years this problem of the additional labour that we must have on the farms at particular periods ought to be better dealt with than it is at the moment. Despite the acute shipping position with which we have again been confronted, I feel that by a policy of trial and error the Ministry of Food have now arrived at a much more satisfactory situation. There is nothing like the public irritation that there was in the past, and I think the Ministry are to be congratulated in having kept such a satisfactory food position for three years.
I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to keep a proper balance between the three main methods that have been devised for the rationing of foodstuffs, namely, the direct rationing of foodstuffs on the basis of individual rights, the group system of rationing as applied to preserves, and the points system. Each of these serves a very useful purpose in a


composite scheme, and I and many of my colleagues who have taken part in these Debates must feel some satisfaction that the points scheme now figures as an integral part of the whole system of distribution. I am glad that the Minister has not persisted in what I understood was his intention to transfer jams and preserves to the points rationing scheme. I do not think the points scheme should be overloaded. It serves its purpose in providing people with a variety of choice, but if at any particular time there is a deficiency of commodities for the points system, that deficiency is not overcome by transferring to it articles of daily consumption.
The Ministry are entitled to some commendation for the improvement which has taken place since our last Debate in regard to black marketing. During the last Debate the Ministry was subjected to considerable criticism for not having tackled the problem of the black market more thoroughly, but the position is better now; the increased penalties are having their effect. It was a case where the public recognised quite clearly that the black market deserved no consideration either from the Government or from the public, and now that more severe penalties are being imposed the worst type of black marketing is tending to disappear. A few days ago there was a Debate in another place with regard to the treatment of black marketeers' licences. I do not know what the Minister's intention is, but my own view is very definite. No person convicted of a serious black market offence which is deliberate or criminal in its intention should have the right to trade any longer; his licence should be withdrawn.
May I submit to the Parliamentary Secretary a point important to dairymen which I think the Ministry have failed to deal with so far? That is the problem, the pirating of milk bottles. Dairymen who supply their milk in bottles are to-day suffering very grave and serious injustice and inconvenience from the extensive pirating and thieving of bottles by other, less scrupulous, dairymen. I know that the public are involved in the problem, but it is not a difficulty impossible to overcome, and I think the Ministry of Food ought to devise some method, as they have done with regard to churns, whereby we should have a clearer legal remedy of prosecution and penalty for any dairyman caught using bottles which are not his own. There is a recovery organisation for this pur-

pose, and I believe that it has repeatedly made representations to the Ministry, but so far its requests have not been met. I hope that it will be done now.
I should also like to express appreciation of the decision of the Ministry of Food in developing their milk rationing scheme in two directions, one in regard to rationalisation, whereby any dairyman with sufficient gallonage who can put up his own efficient scheme showing the utmost measure of economy and meeting the Ministry's standards is allowed to do so, and the other in determining the kind of milk. I am glad that pasteurisation has been recognised as one of the kinds of milk which the consumer is entitled to have. As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, the larger dairy organisations have developed pasteurisation to a very appreciable extent; it is a very desirable process, and a protection for the quality of milk; the Minister should encourage it as much as possible.
The decision of the Ministry to reduce the exemption limit for poultry from 50 to 25 head is a move in the direction which we have pressed in the past. I hope that we shall eventually come down to the figure that we have always urged, namely 12, and probably my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture may be able to persuade him that that is the wisest step to follow.
In conclusion, I should like to give the prices of one or two commodities at the end of the last war and to-day, for I think they clearly indicate the difference between the policy pursued then and the policy of the Government to-day, and further in my view they represent a broad justification of that policy. Butter in November, 1918, had reached the price of 2s. 6d. a lb. During this war it has been more or less retained at 1s. 7d. a lb. Bacon and ham in November, 1918, were 2s. 4d now they are 2s. 2d. Cheese was 1s. 8d., now it is 1s. 1d. Dripping—and this is a more startling justification of the method we have adopted of controlling the prices of basic commodities by subsidy or otherwise—in November, 1918, was 1s. 10d. a lb., now it is 6d. Eggs were 5½d., now they are 2d. Margarine was 1s., now it has been kept at 5d. and 9d Sugar in the last war was 7d. a lb., now it is 3d.
That is an enormous gain to the consumer. We recognise that it has been accomplished by a subsidy, but it was a far


better war policy to adopt, and I believe that the satisfactory position which we are in at present on the whole of the food front is due to it. There has also been a lessening of irritation. Naturally in the past when we were feeling our way towards this policy we had to face criticism from the retailers and the consumers and so on, but recently there has been a great improvement and a greater degree of collaboration between all elements concerned, and that has led to the present satisfactory position. Therefore it appears to me as far as these two Departments are concerned that while, as the Minister says, there is plenty of room for improvemernt, nevertheless, in dealing with the main situation, it is not a bad result. I think that with this result before us, and the food situation after three years of war, we can go forward with every confidence that we shall win the military struggle, and that when we have done so the experience we have built up with regard to food matters in this country will not be lost sight of later on.

Mr. Donald Scott: I shall attempt the impossible, that is, to deal with four or five matters in the space of ten minutes. I must devote at least one of these minutes to paying a tribute to my right hon. Friend for the speech with which he opened this Debate. It was very encouraging to me as a farmer; I think it was encouraging to everyone, but it certainly left no grounds for complacency. I would dearly love to pursue some of the arguments he raised and indeed to follow my hon. Friend who has just spoken in some of his arguments, but time will not allow. Therefore, I will get on with my remarks. Some of these points are causing pin pricks. I would remind the Committee that one pin prick may be an annoyance, two a spur to effort, but a whole series may be a veritable hedgehog of irritation holding up production. The first matter is petrol for farm vehicles and tractors. I think we all welcome the fact that petrol is now allocated on a needs basis, but it may be forgotten sometimes that those who suffer most from the regulations are country dwellers, particularly those in remote areas far distant from towns, markets or shops. At present the decision to grant or withhold petrol is in the hands of the regional petroleum officer, who has no real knowledge of agricultural conditions and needs.
I would suggest that all petrol for farm tractors, for farm machinery, for farm vehicles and even for the farmer's motor car if it is used wholly for business should be allocated by the county war agricultural executive committee, that is, by people who know something about agricultural conditions and local needs. I think my case is proved on this point by the form which farmers have to fill up when they want petrol for their tractors. That form is the most perfect example of the divorce between administration and production. There is a question on the form which asks, "How many hours per week will the tractor be used during the next two months?" I am an honest man and have tried to fill up that form correctly. [Interruption.] I have tried to do it with the aid of Old Moore's Almanac and maybe a little bit of seaweed in the hall, but I cannot tell what the weather will be two months hence. If this matter were in the hands of the county war agricultural committees I suggest that we should have a form which bore some relation to the concrete facts of the case and to the area to be cultivated in the period under review.
I want to deal with the question of fuel for steam threshers, another source of form filling in the future. It may be that we shall have to institute fuel rationing in the autumn of this year, but so far no announcement has been made. With regard to coal required for steam threshers, it would simplify matters if the allocation was made by the war agricultural committees in conjunction with the fuel controller, direct to threshing contractors. It might also simplify matters if coal dumps were set up in strategic positions throughout the corn-growing areas, obviating all the delays and annoyances which will be entailed if farmers have to apply individually for each day's threshing.
My next point has to do with potatoes. Let me say that I cannot speak with any real authority for the Eastern counties or any of the great potato-growing areas of the country. I can only speak, and speak only too sadly, of conditions in my own county of Northumberland where, taken by and large, we were not potato growers before the war, but in spite of that and a certain lack of experience and a decided lack of equipment and seasonal labour, we did our best on a very considerable


acreage last year, and grew good crops. The result was a serious financial loss to the farmers in spite of the £10 per acre subsidy. That was for the very good reason that no one seemed to want to buy our potatoes either for human consumption or for cattle food. Hundreds and hundreds of tons rotted in the county. The fault of that may have been partly due to the weather. Certainly the fault may have been partly due to transport difficulties, or partly to over-production. No matter what the cause was I most certainly hope that we shall not have that to contend with again and that such a result, after all the hard work and sweat and skill put into that potato growing, will not recur next year.

Sir Ernest Shepperson: Is the hon. Member not aware that during the spring the Ministry of Food offered to buy all of any growers' potatoes, therefore any loss would be the loss of the Ministry and not the producer?

Mr. Scott: I am glad that my hon. Friend interrupted me there, because it is something I should have said. All this was in spite of an alleged scheme by the Ministry of Food by which these potatoes were to be taken from us. I could give plenty of examples of men with six, seven and eight acres who have not yet sold a single potato from last year's crop, and never will. I know that we have to grow as many potatoes as possible as a form of insurance. Perhaps that reason has not been definitely and generally realised throughout the country, but it is only fair, if farmers are to be asked to grow this troublesome crop in out of the way places, with machinery, labour and transport difficulties, that they should be told definitely and clearly the reason for having to do so.
That brings me for a moment to the question of propaganda. When I use that word I do not want the Committee to think for one moment that there is anything wrong with the morale of the farmer or the farm worker. That would not be true. But in the country people are somewhat distant from the more blatant manifestations of the war. There are fewer newspapers, no evening Press, cinemas are few and far between and seldom visited, and there remains only the B.B.C. I sometimes wonder whether the best use is being made of B.B.C. time so far as

farmers are concerned. I do not mean talks by farmers to farmers. I do not think they do a great deal of good. They are either simply the pot calling the kettle black or the lily telling the rose how beautiful it is. But I think that stimulating talks by my right hon. Friend when he has the time, by other Ministers, by well-informed people and, also by the personnel of the Mercantile Marine who can talk about the other side of our food supply, would prove most useful. Above all, I should like to see much greater use of travelling cinemas. In the right place, at the right time, with the right pictures, they can have a stimulating effect on production.
Finally, I want to turn to the most important point of all—labour. We are approaching the most momentous harvest this country has ever seen. It is momentous, because upon it will depend not only the physical well being of our civilian population and of our Armed Forces during next winter, but our ability to hold on to victory. It will depend upon the weather—over which we have no control—and upon our ability to get the corn in in good condition. What labour have we for that purpose? There is the old remnant of our permanent personnel in the industry, sadly depleted by voluntary enlistment and by calling up. There is the Women's Land Army, that fine body of girls, who are growing in wisdom, in experience, and, I must add, in beauty, week by week. But we have been told to-day that there are only 40,000 of them. Also, their incidence is not fairly distributed over the country: in many districts there are none. In addition, we have the voluntary part-time gangs of women workers, who are doing an excellent job. I am fortunate enough to have one of these gangs in my own neighbourhood. But for their willing help, many farmers would have been in a sorry plight. Then, we can rely on public school boy labour, summer visitors, university students, and the like; but only to a very limited degree for this harvest. Lastly, we have the older and less fit men, who have been directed into the industry by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service. Obviously, we have a low priority for our call on the labour available, because the men we are getting out of these labour hostels are not of the right type. A distressingly large number


are unemployable. I hate to say that, but that is what I have seen with my own eyes.
There is only one way to tackle this tremendous harvest, which is far bigger than last year's in yield and area. That is, by making use of military vehicles and military labour. I know all the standard reasons against doing this—and some are strong reasons: the dislocation and the inconvenience—but I also know that a great many soldiers are, in their own words, "thoroughly browned off"; and that there would be great benefit to the comparatively few who would be called upon for a comparatively short time. I and many other farmers are dreading this harvest. I do not want to see corn blackening in the stook, and rotting in November, as I did last year. Therefore, with all the sincerity I have, I beg His Majesty's Government to look into this matter of military labour and military vehicles, to give it their very sympathetic consideration, and to see that these crops, these gifts of God, which have been given us so bountifully this year in the fields of Britain, are not wasted, but are used for their rightful purpose, to give us victory.

Mr. Owen Evans: It is a remarkable commentary on the position in regard to agriculture and food that so few hon. Members have chosen to be present to-day to listen to the Debate on this very interesting theme. It may be that there is general satisfaction about the good work done by both the Ministries concerned. Speaking by and large, I would offer my humble congratulations to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture for his excellent work in enforcing the drive in agricultural production. I think that the country is generally agreed that here, at any rate, are two Departments which have tackled a big job very well. The country and the House should not under-estimate the task which confronted the Minister of Agriculture at the beginning of the war. He had virtually to transform farming in this country. He had to deal with an industry which had been languishing, and which had become disheartened. He had to face men who were suspicious of Government assurances, because they felt they had been let down before. A very important factor is that the farmers had

to do things for which they were not trained, and to grow crops to which they had not been accustomed. We are all familiar with the plea regarding the production of munitions of war, that it is a tremendously complex problem to transform a peace industry into a war industry. I maintain, from my own experience of both agricultural and industrial production, that the problem of the farmer is no less considerable than the problem of the industrialist in changing from a peace footing to a war footing.
I would pay this tribute to the Ministry of Food. We can express satisfaction with the way they have got the products of the farmer to the consumer. I can well imagine that Hitler and his advisers, when it was decided to invade Russia rather than this country, considered that it was only a question of time before we were starved out by the depredations of the U-boats; but the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food, backed by the British farmers, have successfully countered that threat up to now. The secret of that success is, I think, the secret of the failure in another sphere of production. It is that the Minister of Agriculture was able to make use of regional organisations, in the form of the county committees, and that the ground was well prepared before the war. The Minister has trusted those committees, and has not unduly interfered with their activities, although he bas made it clear, in a very forcible way, from time to time, that he expects them to do their job thoroughly. I can say, from personal knowledge, that his regular visits to these county agricultural committees have greatly stimulated and encouraged them. I think the committees provide very valuable experience for the basis of agricultural organisation after the war. Obviously, the efficiency of the committees depends upon the capacity of the members, who should be—and are—men of tried experience in agriculture. Generally the Minister and the Department of Agriculture have taken great pains in selecting these men; but there has been a tendency to restrict membership of the committees to older men, men who are perhaps past their best. The Minister might look into this matter, and consider whether he can get younger men to serve. The work is very onerous, and I suggest that more young, progressive farmers should be appointed.
Surely this occupation is so important that it ought to be reserved just as properly as any reservation applying to a technical man in a munition factory. The magnitude of the task and of what has been achieved can be seen when we consider that before the war it was estimated that the amount of food imported from overseas, taken altogether, was about threequarters of our consumption before the war. To take the figures separately, we imported 87 per cent. of the flour, 92 per cent. of the fats, 51 per cent. of the meat—the rest being greatly dependent upon imported feeding stuffs—and 73 per cent. of the sugar. I am sorry that I missed the first part of the speech of the Minister, but it will be very interesting for the Committee to know how these figures have changed. Perhaps the Minister may not care to give the actual figures, but I am under the impression that by his efforts, backed up, as he has been, by the farmers of this country, we are now producing more than half the food supplies of the country. I am under the impression that this is about the figure, and I notice that the Minister nods his head.

Mr. Hudson: It is nearly two-thirds.

Mr. Evans: That is a very great result to be achieved during the two or three years of the war, and it would be of interest to know what commodities have shown the most marked increases. I want to deal with one or two other points. The Minister has expressed the view that we can still produce more, and I entirely agree with him, but the main source of improvement in the future will be by having better farming, and better farming will depend upon the supplies of fertilisers, and certainly upon labour. Both are important. Fertilisers, and particularly phosphates, are needed on almost all the grasslands that have been ploughed up. The supply of labour involves some conflict with the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour, but we must lay it down definitely that if we are to maintain our present production there must be an amount of skilled labour available which must not be called up.
I conclude my remarks by particularly calling the attention of the Minister to the women who are being called up throughout the country. He knows that in certain parts of the country the farms consist mostly of family farms. There may be a

son or two at home who, after leaving school, were trained in farm work, or a daughter or two, also trained in farm work. These are general conditions throughout certain parts of the country, and particularly in the counties of Wales, which have been visited from time to time by the Minister. The interviewers who are chosen and appointed by the Minister of Labour to interview these girls are really people who know nothing whatever about agriculture. I happened to see a serious complaint in my county of how these interviewers regarded girls who had been doing farm work consistently since leaving school. Silly questions were being asked which showed a complete absence of knowledge of administration and of work on the farm. They asked such questions as, "How much time do you spend in the house? How much time does your domestic work take up? "I would like the Minister of Labour to realise that every farmhouse in the country is a canteen for the farmworkers and is just as important as a canteen for munition workers. If there are daughters at home who cook the food for the farm workers and clean the house, they are doing farm work. In my county these girls have, time and time again, been called up by the Minister of Labour to be interviewed and have had to go distances of 10 or 11 miles.

Sir Joseph Lamb: Not only in Wales.

Mr. Evans: That is the fact in my part of the country. I am not going into the question of the advisability or otherwise of interviewing Welsh girls in the English language when the girls prefer the Welsh language. These interviewers are ignorant of the nature of farming. I said to one of them, "Have you ever seen a sow farrowing?" and she replied, "I never knew that they used a sow for harrowing at all." There is general complaint throughout the country, and I ask the Minister to look into this question. These girls are part of the Women's Land Army and are genuine farm workers. If he wants to maintain production and indeed to increase it by better farming—and that is the chief way to achieve the object he has in view—he must take care that an ample supply of labour and machinery and sufficient fertilisers are available for the farmers.

Captain York: I too would like to add my congratulations both to the Minister of Food and to the Minister of Agriculture, because it cannot be stressed too often what a magnificent job their two Departments have done in the country. I am certain that the Committee will allow me a few minutes to right two wrongs, one of which arises in the agriculture world and one in the sphere of the Minister of Food. The first point is that there is a misunderstanding in the farming community at the present time as a result of the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture in regard to the dispossession of farmers for reasons apart from bad farming. In these statements, which had wide publicity in all farming papers, certain parts of the statement were perhaps taken out of their context, but the fact remains that the impression abroad in the farming world is a wrong one. In his statement, which was made on nth November, 1941, he says among other things:
It appears to the Government therefore that the most effective deterrent to speculation in agricultural land is to restrict the power of the purchaser to give effective notice to quit to the sitting tenant. This will also avoid the disturbance of tenants who are playing their part in the increased food production campaign by farming their land well, disturbance which is obviously prejudicial to the national effort.
That taken in the context in which it was spoken should have been read with the statement that the Minister had himself to give consent to all notices which were given by the new owners of land who had purchased their farms subsequent to the war. But the real point is that although the Minister's consent is necessary, yet the Minister must give his consent unless he can prove that there is a speculative intent, and that is an exceedingly difficult thing to prove, or that he has reason to think that by granting permission to give notice a decrease in food production might arise. That is a fact, and I believe it to be wrong that a man who, in his pre-war life, has had nothing to do with food production—probably a city man who has been in commerce previously—should come along in war-time and take away a farm from a sitting tenant who has been there a great many years and whose father and grandfather were probably there before him. I do not intend to make a speech on the principles involved. I would like to do so, but it would take a long time. However, I want producers to

realise the position, and I would like to ask the Minister whether he cannot reconsider his decision on this particular point and see whether further protection cannot be given to these men who are good farmers and have been told so by their agricultural committees.
Now I would like to raise a point with the Ministry of Food. It is a small injustice, and because it is small it is difficult to get the necessary support in this House in order to force the attention of the Ministry to concentrate upon it. The majority of people in this country realise that our Service men are not being well treated. I think I can say that without fear of contradiction. But there is one useful concession which has been granted by the Ministry of Food in that if a Service man who is serving in this country has a wife and children, they are entitled to have it noted so that the Service man can be regarded as living with the family. Therefore, the free allowances of vitamins and milk can be obtained by the family. But when the Service man is killed on active service, his widow is told that she can no longer have this free milk and vitamins. In answer to a Question, the Parliamentary Secretary told me that in his opinion this is not an injustice, but surely it is an ungrateful action, to say the least of it, to one who has given her best for the country—her husband; an ungrateful action that has been perpetrated by the country to the memory of a man who has given his life for his country. Every little help that can be given at that time should be given, and I hope the Minister will reconsider his decision on this point, on which I ask the Committee to support me in my efforts.
I promised I would not refer to any points other than these. There are many others upon which I would have liked to have spoken, but I think we can say quite candidly that the farming community of this country, of which I am a small part, are doing their job and will continue to do so, whatever difficulties may be put in their way. I feel convinced that with the continuance of the magnificent administration of the two Departments concerned this country will never really lack for the necessary sustenance with which to carry on our war effort.

Mr. Richards: I think we are all agreed that this is an interesting occasion from many points of view, in


that we are allowed, I presume, to discuss these two Votes together. I do not know whether it is a case of "coming events cast their shadows before" and whether we shall eventually get one Ministry to deal both with the production and distribution of food in this country, but at any rate I think it is long overdue. We have heard an interesting account of what the Ministry of Agriculture has been doing during the past few years, but I would like to point out that the tragedy of the Ministry so far is that it is purely an advisory body. It has had to try to lead the farmers of this country in the best way it could, but, as the Minister pointed out, there are very considerable difficulties in doing that, and many of us who are anxious for agricultural reform in the real sense of the term know and feel that the Ministry must be endowed with much more power than it enjoys at the present time. I would like to join in the congratulations to the Ministry upon the work they have done in changing the character of agriculture in this country, but we must not forget that there was considerable inducement from more than one point of view to do this.
The first and greatest inducement was, I think, that we felt that our food supply was in dire peril. As patriotic people, farmers realised that to the full, and I think we ought to be proud of the service they have rendered to the nation in this hour of need. As has been said to-day, this has cost the Exchequer a very considerable sum of money, and I am suggesting that the time should come when this House ought to take more interest in the food of the people than merely having more Food and Drugs Acts passed occasionally so that certain commodities are not offered to the consumers of this country. The two Ministries whose Votes we are discussing to-day could, together, make a very formidable combination indeed, and I hope we can look forward to the time when we shall be dealing with both sides of this fundamental question of the food of the people of this country and of the production of an adequate amount here for them. The Minister of Agriculture has, I feel, a particularly difficult question to face. I do not want to minimise the effort which has been made, but I would say that although it is possible to drive agriculture for two, three, four or five years, one does not

look forward to the condition of the agricultural community and industry at the end of such a drive. We must remember when locking at the excellent crops we see in various parts of the country that what we are really doing is capitalising a great deal of the fertility that has been lying in our soil for a great many years. If we cannot get an adequate supply of manures from some place or other in order to restore that fertility, the agriculture of the country will be in a much more precarious position at the end of the war than it was at the beginning of the war.
Consequently, I rejoice very much in what the Minister said about the Research Committee and the Improvement Committee he is setting up. It is an old adage of the Royal Society of Agriculture that the object of the Society is to combine practice with science. I am glad to think that the Ministry of Agriculture are at last taking that as their motto. In this country, with its very considerable variations in soil and in climate, we must in future depend upon a much more advanced degree of agricultural research than we have been accustomed to in the past. I would only add that this research—and here we have one of the weaknesses of agricultural research, in my opinion—should always be co-ordinated with its economic results. I know that in many cases the farmers are very critical of scientific agriculture, but, on the other hand, I think they have good grounds for being critical. What the farmer wants is not of necessity good crops. The farmer—the potato grower, for example—has had the bitter experience of excellent crops but an inadequate monetary return. I suggest to the Minister of Agriculture that scientific research, which is most valuable and is being carried on by the Department at the present time, should be tested by the economic test as to whether it will yield to the ordinary farmer a return adequate to the expenses he is incurring. I conclude by saying that I rejoice to see the representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food sitting so amicably together. I do not know whether it is a case of a trial marriage or not. I am sure we would all agree with the poet:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.
That is my feeling.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: This Debate on agriculture and food has been marked by a degree of harmony unusual in Debates on either agriculture or food, and almost ominous in a Debate on the two together. As one who was Minister of Agriculture during years when there was in Debates on agriculture by no means that degree of unanimity, I must congratulate my successor on having smoothed away so many of the obstacles in his path. I think that is largely due to the fact that in case of need the people of this country begin to realise that one ton of food where we can get it is worth 10 tons of food in a place from which its passage to us may be interrupted by a submarine fleet. The danger is that at other times we tend to forget these things. Therefore, I was very interested in the remarks of the hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Barnes), when he indicated that at the end of the war we must not allow the bottom to drop out of agricultural prices as it did at the end of the last war.
The shape of things to come begins to become evident. From all sides of the Committee there has been expressed a desire that in some form or other the Ministry of Food should persist after the war. Undoubtedly, that would involve the shouldering by the general purse of some part of the food prices, that is to say, a subsidy. Let us face bluntly the fact that after the war subsidy must be an integral part of our agricultural administration. All the research in the world—and I am a very strong advocate of research—will not in any way make up for insufficient prices. As was said by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Richards), a bountiful crop which gluts the market and is undisposable does more harm than good. Certainly, the danger in this country in the past was scarcely the under use but the over use of research. The new countries produced crops far inferior to those produced in this country. The production per acre in this country was high above the production per acre in the countries of the New World. After the war, we shall require to have some mechanism to ensure—and not merely to express the pious hope—that adequate prices are secured to the producer. This will involve a certain control over the producer of food, but I think he is willing to agree to that.
It has been said during the Debate that the Minister of Agriculture has no executive powers and is merely an advisory person. That was the case before the war, but in the county war executive committees the Minister of Agriculture has produced a pretty stiff compulsitor on agriculture. If any of the other industries of the country were submitted to a compulsitor of this kind, there would be a great deal more creaking and friction before the machine was running. I shudder to think what would happen in the coal industry if it had to bow its neck beneath the yoke that is laid on the shoulders of agriculturists. But the three things together—control, adequate remuneration, and interest of the people at home to protect our home agricultural production—will, I think, give us a reasonable agriculture after the war without the frightful succession of booms and slumps which in the past were the ruin of anyone who tried to produce in a continuous fashion. The hon. Member for East Ham South is a great co-operator. The co-operative societies have experience enough of agricultural estates and experience enough of having to get out of the production of food after a war.
However, the danger is that while we are indulging in generalisations there are certain steps being taken which do not by any means square with some of the lines of policy and some of the assurances that have been given to us. A very interesting White Paper was laid before the House recently on the Exchange of Notes following upon the conclusion of the Wheat Discussions at Washington. This arrangement was put across as a beneficent means of pooling and collecting surpluses and disposing of them after the war, but if one reads the White Paper, one sees that that is very far from being all. It is the old business of the restriction of production, and not merely in the exporting countries, but in the countries which have to import. That is very clearly set out in the White Paper, and I think that the Minister, in replying to the Debate, should give us an assurance that this matter is being very carefully examined from the point of view of home agriculture. There are some ominous phrases in the Draft Convention, where it says that
The benefits of abundant world supplies of wheat cannot be assured to consumers unless there is a substantial decrease in uneconomic incentives to high-cost production, a lowering


of barriers to world trade and the charging of prices to consumers not substantially higher than the price of wheat in international trade.
I draw the Committee's attention to the words:
a substantial decrease in uneconomic incentives to high-cost production.
We all know what that means. It means that wheat mining and quarrying goes on in the new countries of the world at a rate far below the replacement value of the wheat, and that this leads to the rack and ruin of agriculture in the older countries, such as ours, which have faced up to the problem of putting back into the land as much as is taken out of it. I believe that this country is as economic a wheat-producer as almost any country in the world, but it cannot produce wheat against the wheat mining and quarrying in the great deserts and steppes which results in the dust bowl of the United States and other phenomena of the kind, where the land has been wrecked by dragging crops out of it and putting them into the market at a price against which it is quite impossible for farmers here to compete. Therefore, when I see in the Draft Convention the phrases that the benefits of abundant world supplies of that wheat cannot be assured to consumers unless there is
a substantial decrease in uneconomic incentives to high-cost production,
and, in Article 2, on "Production Control," that
the Governments of the four great exporting countries shall adopt suitable measures to ensure that the production of wheat in their territories does not exceed the quantity needed for domestic requirements and the basic export quotas and maximum reserve stocks for which provision is hereinafter made,
and a note to that Article which says that it is
to be expanded later to include provisions for production control in other exporting and in importing countries,
I say that I have heard this sort of thing before. It is a sort of provision in an international agreement which requires careful watching, because occasionally things are signed away which are afterwards found extremely awkward to fulfil or get rid of.
There is another point I should like to raise. It is true that production of food in this country is subject to considerable variations; we have bountiful harvests and, occasionally, a surplus, but for all

that I think it is a scandal that in wartime hundreds of thousands of potatoes should be rotting in the clamps. I cannot but feel that that is inadequate handling of the food situation. I say, without any hesitation, that in such cases it is possible to look a month or two ahead. The Minister got away with it very nicely by saying that this is an insurance premium, and asked what would have been said if London had had to go short of potatoes. I say, the fact that potatoes were growing whiskers as long as your arm, which was evident to anyone who went about the country—either you had to let the potatoes rot, or use up invaluable agricultural labour in dressing them—was a piece of obvious waste which discouraged everyone engaged in agriculture. Debates such as these are not merely occasions for handing out bouquets to the Ministers concerned, but for now and again throwing hard bricks as vigorously as they can be hurled. I hereby hurl this brick with the utmost vigour I can at those responsible for allowing many hundreds of thousands of good potatoes to rot this summer. Many hon. Members desire to speak during this Debate, and I will therefore not delay the Committee any longer. I hope, however, that we may have an answer to some of these points.

Mr. Clement Davies: We are having a very short Debate on the two very important subjects of food production and food distribution, but that should not account for the sparseness of attendance. We have just listened to a very interesting speech by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), who had the charge of agriculture for many years, and I was tempted to direct your attention, Sir Dennis, in such a way as to ensure an adequate attendance. Is this attitude of the House of Commons representative of the country at the present moment? I am afraid, to some extent, that it is. There is this sort of complacent smugness and self-satisfaction that all is going quite well. That can be accounted for in the country by lack of knowledge of the true position. Our position with regard to food must be serious. This country has depended for two years on food brought by ships from overseas and what can be produced in this country, and, if the figures published this week-end by the Americans and repeated


in our Press are correct, then the situation is getting hourly more serious. If that is so, there ought to be an expansion of production in this country.
There was one part of the Minister's speech with which I agreed. It was when, in the last sentences, he said he was satisfied there could be more production and a great deal of improvement. That, I think, is obvious. But what does it show? It shows that sufficient steps have not been taken, that there has not been sufficient planning in the past and that we are still meandering along with some slight improvements. There is a tendency among Members all the time to say that things are very much improved, that we are producing so much more food now than during the last year, so much more beet and so on, but when will this House realise that this is not the question before us to-day? The questions they ought to be asking are: What is required, what are the plans which have been made to bring about these requirements, how far short of them are we at the present moment and what further efforts are necessary? That is the sort of approach which should be made by the Minister, instead of reciting how well we have done.
What will be our position during the winter? The Minister referred to a number of inquiries which are being made. He stated that committees were inquiring into hill-land and mountain sheep, drainage, fertilisers and land improvement. When does he really think this war broke out? As far as we are concerned, war broke out in September, 1939. We are now approaching the end of the third year of war, and now committees are sitting, under Sir George Stapledon and Lord De la Warr, to consider what we are to do. When are the Government to get the fruits?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. T. Williams): This year.

Mr. Davies: But we cannot get the crops this year. If the situation gets worse, what is the Ministry going to do? I still think, as I thought nearly three years ago—I am glad that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Richards) called attention to it—that production of food ought to be under the control of the Minister of Food. It is his duty to see

that food goes, not only to the members of the Armed Forces, but to the people of the country. Food is the most important thing of all; without food men cannot fight, produce and live. The Minister of Agriculture ought to be his factory manager and under his direction. I agree there ought to be more direction and less advice. I am still unrepentant with regard to transport.

Mr. Williams: To whom does the hon. and learned Member refer? Is he referring to the county war agricultural executive committees?

Mr. Davies: No, Sir. I will give my right hon. Friend an instance. The Ministry of Agriculture advises all farmers to be self-supporting. There is no direction.

Mr. Williams: The hon. and learned Member must be aware that county war agricultural executive committees have power to direct to the extent of fulfilling the Minister's programme for this year, next year or any other year. They have power to direct the farmer on what he must grow and how he must fertilise and all the rest of it.

Mr. Davies: How much is that exercised? There ought to be full direction with regard to everything. Take the instance that I was giving. We advise farmers to be self-supporting. If you had a Minister of Food in charge of all food saying, "This is what I require, and this is what will have to be given and produced for me "—that is the policy that is wanted, the Minister directing how, when and where these matters are to be raised. To take another instance, there is a great deal of talk about lack of fertility. So there is. They continue to tell the farmer to buy lime and put it on his land. The Ministry of Agriculture know the conditions, and surely their position should be to direct that wherever lime would be of benefit to the soil and would grow food it should be put there.

Mr. Williams: That is exactly what they say.

Mr. Davies: They ought to be providing them with lime and saying, "Put it on your land." But they are short of lime.
Turning to production, I should like to call attention to what was said by the


Minister with regard to potatoes, I saw yesterday representatives of the Potato Growers' Association, and their story shortly is that last year they responded to the appeal that was made and grew probably something in the neighbourhood of 2,000,000 tons more than had hitherto been grown. Some scores of thousands of those potatoes went west. They say that, nevertheless, this year they were pressed again to bring on early potatoes and secondaries. The thing was so mismanaged that distribution became difficult, and quite a lot of these potatoes have already during the last six weeks begun to go rotten. It shows that there is a real lack of system, and all that the Minister said was that he had done this as a matter of insurance. Does he grow food in order to have a surplus and then turn round and say that what is not necessary can go to rot? Is that the policy? They knew full well that potatoes were an easy crop to grow and that there would probably be a large crop grown, but they asked farmers to put up more potatoes. I do not know how many have been put up. I should be glad if we could be informed what is the Ministry's calculation as to the amount of wastage that occurred last year, what has been the wastage of the early crop and the secondaries already, and what is their method of dealing with the main crop when it comes through. Will there again be the possibility of a large quantity of it going rotten, or do they intend to take such steps that it can be utilised as direct feeding to the people and not indirect, through birds or animals? These are the matters that are worrying agriculture. There is a whole host of other questions that one would like to ask, but the time is too short.

Mr. Robertson: I could not support the hon. Member in his plea for a combined Minister of Food and Agriculture. In my view each of these jobs is almost too big for any one human being, and, if there are faults, it is mainly due to the fact that they have too much to do, too much responsibility and too little time for planning ahead. I was interested in the speech of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), but I should like to make a brief comment on the brickbat that he threw with regard to potatoes. In my view it is a very cheap insurance to

pay to get through in the way we have done. With a bountiful Providence producing all manner of crops in unknown quantity, because of the weather, and with almost equally unknown consumption, should we have been justified in running the risk of wheat ships being sunk to a greater extent? Wheat and potatoes have a strong similarity, and I feel that the insurance premium was well worth paying.
The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. O. Evans) referred to the small attendance here. I think he hit the nail on the head when he said the reason was the satisfaction that Members on all sides felt with the success of our agricultural policy. I think that goes without saying. I recollect earlier Debates, when I came into the House two and a half years ago, when these benches were crowded, because things wanted doing to repair the neglect of so many years, in the excessive importation of food from overseas and the consequent wastage. The Minister had no comment to make in regard to the home production of fish. I am sure, if he had time, he would have paid a great tribute to the very small but resolute fishing industry, which is carrying on with old craft, and frequently old men, and producing so much fish food under dangerous conditions. The House owes that tribute to these men. I should like to ask what has been done to increase fish production from Canada, Newfoundland and Iceland. I am wondering if the Ministry has really done very much to increase the patriotic efforts of the four firms who started the importation of frozen fish from these countries before the war. My impression is that they have done very little. They have just carried on these contracts, and a great opportunity has been lost. Very large quantities of salt cod from Iceland were imported last year. What has been imported this year?' We have sent much coal to Iceland to provide the trawlers with fuel and I am wondering if they caught the cod, because it has not appeared here. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with that point, too.
A good many questions have been asked in the last month or two in regard to salmon production, the shortage and the high price, but is not the basic fact that the industry has been deprived of labour, and is not that a short-sighted


policy? When salmon come back to the rivers of their birth, we cannot spare the men to catch them. On the Tweed we have one crew where there used to be ten. On the Tay it is very little better, and on the Forth, which has the finest salmon trout fishing in the country, there are only one or two old men. One man who has been employed in the industry for 38 years—an experience which means a lot in an industry where so much skill is required—is now employed wheeling a barrow in an agricultural warehouse. That is a misuse of man-power which we cannot afford. I hope that before next season comes round there will be better cooperation between the four Departments concerned with this problem—Fisheries, Scottish Office, Ministry of Food and Ministry of Labour. In that connection it will be within the recollection of the Committee that my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Fuel when Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food told us that the Government deemed salmon of so much importance that they had paid 4s. 6d. per lb. for the whole of the Eire catch up to 15th May and 2s. 6d. thereafter. If that food is so valuable to the nation that these high prices have to be paid, it is worth while sparing the hundreds of men who are required—not thousands—to ensure that the home salmon will be caught, because once the fish have passed the estuary they have gone, and probably their potential successors, too, owing to the lack of accommodation on the spawning beds. A certain proportion of fish must be caught to ensure that the fishing goes on.
I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary one or two questions with regard to fish distribution. Is it a fact that nothing has been done other than to control fish prices? Has nothing been done to control distribution? Is there an equitable distribution of fish, or does it go to the highest bidders? I am inclined to think that a good deal of it does because of the cash transactions which are common in the industry. It is almost five years ago since the Government began to make plans with regard to fish. They set up the Food Defence Plans Department at the Board of Trade and it worked for almost two years before the war broke out. Then it became the Ministry of Food. I used to be in this industry, but I retired after I came here, and, as far

as I know, the only thing that has been done in regard to the great fish distribution industry in Great Britain is to control prices, thus enabling thousands of wholesalers and retailers to keep going the whole fabric of peace-time distribution except for the lame ducks who fell in the first months of the war. It has been kept going at the expense of the consumer and taxpayer. There is only one economic way of compensating for a loss of turnover and that is by a high rate of gross profit. Another point arises in regard to fish distribution which has a tremendous bearing on the war situation. All the evils of allowing fish to be carted from Aberdeen to London and back to Birmingham or Grimsby, or from Milford Haven to Paisley still go on. Every individual person or wholesaler in this scramble to sell food to a hungry population, which is a most profitable job, can telephone and telegraph anywhere. If he is successful he can bring a load of fish by road or rail to his place. When he gets it he can send it anywhere.
There is no control over distribution between the port of landing and consumption. We have tried to do so much with all other commodities; is it so difficult to do it with fish? When my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Fuel was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food 18 months ago I urged the control of prices but he said how difficult a problem it was. He brought it in, however, and it has worked smoothly. That control is not a complete machine. It is not enough to control prices. Distribution also must be controlled if the population are to get a fair share. One can go to Billingsgate any day and see private individuals with cars waiting for fish. What roots have they there? Who are they? I do not know them and none of my old colleagues know them.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: They are from hotels and restaurants.

Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman is well informed on this subject, and no doubt he will tell the Committee about it. The wastage of transport is of great importance. When I drew the attention of the Minister of Transport to it he wrote on 16th February, that his
proposals concerning transport, far from being ignored, actually form part of a far-reaching scheme for the reorganisation of fish


distribution, on which the Ministry of Food are now engaged in consultation with the Fish Industry Joint Council.
That was five months ago, and nothing has been done. I have already touched on the high rate of profit which is being paid to many retailers and wholesalers, and which enables them to carry on. It is not pleasing for me to say that about many of my old friends in the fish industry. When a deputation of Birmingham wholesalers came here a few weeks ago I told them to effect marriages one with the other, for it was not good enough to have 30 or 40 wholesalers attempting to get a livelihood out of one-fifth of the quantity of fish. They only got that livelihood because of the generosity of the taxpayers and consumers. It must come to an end and we should take steps to see that it does come to an end.
In regard to concentration generally, we are told that the concentration of food businesses is in the hands of the Minister of Food. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us what has been done about it. We heard last week in the House that a scheme of concentration for other kinds of shopkepers was being prepared, but not for the privileged food traders. Apparently they do not want to come in and are doing so well that they do not need to come in, while being willing to allow their less fortunate brethren in other trades to sink. Why should they remain out? Why should the Government allow them to remain out? Is there not a shortage of food? If there is not, there is no need for concentration, but obviously there is, and fewer shopkeepers are required. In all these cases they are carrying on on reduced turnovers in weight or numbers simply because of the increased rate of gross profits that they get. They pass this on to the consumer. It is then passed on to the taxpayer, because so many consumers are employees of the State.
I feel that the Ministry of Food in approaching this problem could save the Board of Trade scheme, which is in danger of being destroyed. The premium provided by that scheme is 20s. per cent., but if food traders came in, it could be made a graded levy beginning at 5s. on the first £5,000 of turnover per annum, then 10s. for the next £2,500, and 20s. on the remainder. The man with the biggest turnover is the man with the biggest net profit, and he is able to pay the

biggest levy. I would also like my right hon. Friend to consider bringing in the landlords of retail food shops. They have a great interest, and so has the local authority. A small percentage of 1¼ per cent. or thereabouts on the rent would ensure that the landlord would not be left high and dry under a concentration scheme. It is not right that he should be left high and dry. It is right that he should contribute to the insurance premium, because he has an interest, just as the tenant has. I submit, also, that local authorities have an interest, from the point of view of the rates on those shops, and might well contribute a small percentage, say 1¼ per cent. on the rates, to ensure half rates.

The Chairman (Sir Dennis Herbert): The hon. Member is now going through the whole gamut of Government Departments, and he must remember the limitation of this Debate to the Departments of Ministers whose Votes are before us.

Mr. Robertson: I am grateful to you, Sir Dennis, and in view of your remarks I will not pursue that point further. It arose out of the need for concentration in this important industry. Having regard to the fact that many other hon. Members want to speak I will sit down, but I earnestly hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with some or all of the points which I have raised.

Mr. Woods: I hope that the contribution of the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson) will be taken seriously by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food. While the Ministry, very reluctantly, have applied rationing and other schemes which have been received with a considerable degree of general satisfaction throughout the community I think their handling of the distribution of fish has given less satisfaction, because the public feel that they have not had an opportunity to get adequate supplies. The most important point which has come out of this Debate is to be found in the concluding remarks of the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Scott). He referred to the actual work of getting in the harvest. To all appearances the harvest is going to be a magnificent one, but just as a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush so corn in the barn is worth far more than corn left in the fields, and if the harvest cannot be gathered in there


is not merely waste but heartbreaking discouragement for those who have laboured so hard to achieve success. The hon. Member suggested that if supplies of labour from other quarters are not sufficient, soldiers should be used to assist in gathering in the harvest. I hope that if the Minister of Agriculture meets with any difficulty in this respect he will take the matter to the Cabinet and get a Cabinet decision. In war-time the Army must not be so predominant that they cannot accommodate themselves to the requirements of the civil front, and assisting in harvesting the crops is just as important as engaging in sham battles.

Earl Winterton: In fairness to the Army it ought to be known that a certain overseas corps in my part of the world gave valuable assistance in this respect last year. The Army give assistance wherever they can.

Mr. Woods: The Noble Lord's remarks are rather premature, because I was going to point out what was done last year, but the experience throughout the country then was varied. Where there was a sympathetic, intelligent officer who faced the concrete situation in front of him in a human way the farmers received help, the soldiers who participated enjoyed a break in their training which did them no harm, and a social spirit was created in the countryside which was good both for the civilian and the military communities. But in other areas we found officers lacking the same imagination and sympathetic understanding who made it very difficult or expensive for farmers to get the services of soldiers. They made numerous inquiries and a great deal was made of the question of control and supervision.

The Chairman: I must remind the hon. Member that there is no War Office Vote before the Committee.

Mr. Woods: Your predecessor in the Chair, Sir Dennis, allowed an appeal to be made to the Minister to get soldiers to assist in getting in the crops.

The Chairman: Yes, but that does not allow the hon. Member to discuss the behaviour of officers in the Army.

Mr. Woods: I apologise if what I said was out of Order, but I think that getting in the crops is a vital matter, and it seems that in many areas the only extra labour

which is readily available and can be organised efficiently will be that of the soldiers stationed in the locality, and I hope that the Minister of Agriculture will see that this labour is efficiently used so that the crops are not wasted. As to the Minister's speech, I think the country will note with pleasure the progressive attitude of the Ministry and its appreciation of the importance of scientific research, but I would point out that research is one thing and the dissemination of the results of research work is another, and probably the most difficult thing to achieve.
I should like to pay a tribute to the assistance given to the Department by the staffs of the agricultural colleges who have been liberated for this work. Their patience, their persistence, and their energy in getting about and making personal contact with farmers have brought about almost a revolution in the attitude of the average farmer to scientists. I feel that a good deal more can be done along those lines, and I should like to see the Ministry with a much more efficiently organised scheme for utilising the services of all those men who have had not only scientific training but some experience in lecturing and passing on information. I think the time has come when the Ministry of Agriculture—and the same applies to other Ministries, although I must not refer to them—should recognise the supreme and urgent importance of research proper. While perhaps continuing for the time being its relationship with voluntary organisations, I think the Department is in a position to offer opportunities of direct service to some of the best men who are specialists in various branches of knowledge. They should be there to advise the Minister and to supervise whatever voluntary research is taking place.
There was a time when all research work was the hobby of a few persons. Very often the results they obtained were so revolutionary that they were laughed at. The most revolutionary book I have ever read was not a book dealing with sociology but with fruit growing. Some of the results of scientific investigation have been so revolutionary that so-called practical men, those who always do what their fathers and their grandfathers before them had done, regarded them as too startling to be true. I hope that the


Minister will have in the Ministry of Agriculture a Department which encourages the finest brains and is in consultation with world research organisations, so that the authoritative leadership of the Ministry can be given to the whole industry, not in bits and bobs but linked up with the Board of Education and the university organisations and agricultural colleges, so that we can have an assurance that the supreme achievements of scientific research as applied to the practical problems of agriculture will be disseminated without delay throughout the industry.
I have only a word or two to say on the Ministry of Food and do not wish to waste time with further compliments. Necessarily there has been a good deal of improvisation in the Ministry of Food. The Minister has had to take the services of whatever organisation may have existed in an industry and utilise the personnel. One can understand that, but there is a feeling that a sort of oligarchy has grown up, and that those in the small ring are in an advantageous position as compared with the others. It has been very difficult to get satisfactory information regarding the working of some of these trade organisations. The very fact that the Ministry is so reluctant to give information rather increases than allays the suspicion that there is unnecessary extravagance. There is, for example, the wholesale side of the meat industry, both in home slaughtering and importing. Matters have gone on fairly satisfactorily, but the correspondence I have received satisfies me that there is room for substantial economies and for a higher standard of efficiency and, in some cases, of a greater sense of equity.
I did put down Questions in regard to grain purchasing. A limited monopoly has been in existence for this very important service. It was a game played by a few, and vast profits were made. The organisations concerned are given practically the responsibility, and those who are in with them are all right; but those who are doing the work and not associated with those organisations are ignored. Where a good deal of money is being dispersed I imagine you always get some degree of dissatisfaction in those who are not getting a share, but there is some degree of necessity for the Minister to make inquiries to see whether the organi-

sations are functioning economically and efficiently.
Another aspect is the organisation for fat smelting. When the whole story of this comes out, I think the Ministry will be rather ashamed of the record. I have heard grievances expressed, many of them legitimate, of which it has been practically impossible, with the present organisation of the Ministry, to get any redress. The individuals associated with the central organisation for dealing with this matter are limited in their application and restricted in their operations, but they were given practically a monopoly and all the small people were just blotted out, without any regard being paid to the efficiency of their plants or to the percentage of fats recovered from the raw materials. Now a whole range of these people have been put on to a sort of reserve scale. The Minister may smile, but I see from the last report of the national association which was practicaly given a monopoly that an individual was seconded to it from his Department and made a tour of the country to decide—rather lightly, I am told—which organisations should function, and that this individual subsequently received a very substantial honorarium from the organisation. One understands that they got their money's worth. That kind of thing does not create confidence in the public mind. This aspect of the activities of the Ministry of Food demands the urgent attention of the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary.
These are minor points in the whole picture. It is very easy for us to be wise after the event. Some of the criticism in this Debate has been of that nature. The problems before the Minister of Food and the Minister of Agriculture were extremely complicated and difficult. The organisations which were there had to be dealt with, and, if the work was to be done, those organisations and personnel had to be used. On the whole, the Minister of Agriculture has tackled his task with a sense of human values and with an appreciation of the historical obstinacy of the British race, especially in certain localities. Inspite of the handicaps and difficulties, the achievement has been very substantial. At the time of Dunkirk, most of us had very great misgivings. We expected that, if the war continued, conditions in the midsummer of 1942 would


be far worse than they are. I hope that the achievement will not provoke complacency, but will be regarded as a true index of what can be still further achieved.

Flight-Lieutenant Boothby: Whenever the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson) speaks on the subject of fish distribution, he commands the attention of hon. Members, because he knows what he is talking about. I would only say that I hope the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, when examining matters relating to fish, will not forget the most important fish of all—more important than salmon—the herring. In this country we are blessed with constant and continuous shoals of herring around our costs. I would like an assurance that we are getting all of them that we can, having regard to the restrictions imposed by naval requirements, and that the distribution of herrings is as good as it can possibly be.
The reason for the comparatively small attendance in this Committee is, I think, due to geaeral satisfaction with the performance of both the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Agriculture. They have been, on the whole, conspicuously successful Government Departments in this war. Production has exceeded our hopes, and distribution has belied our fears. I would add, to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, that his Department is to be congratulated on the enormous and continued success of the kitchen front campaign. It has brought about a tremendous improvement in the standard of nutrition, and consequently in the health of the people of this country. I hope that he carries on with it.
I should like to say a word on the subject of the National Milk Scheme. Perhaps the Committee will forgive me if I say that, if I never do anything more in public life, my association with the introduction of this scheme will always be a source of satisfaction to me. I believe that it is one of the greatest single measures of social reform ever passed by this House. It has achieved all that was expected of it. There is only one question I want to ask in connection with it. The intention at the time of the introduction of the

National Milk Scheme was that, having secured the health and welfare of infant children and nursing mothers, the scheme should be supplemented by a great extension of the milk-in-schools scheme, and also by increasing the provision of meals in schools. Is the Minister quite satisfied that this matter has gone as fast as might have been expected or hoped? My impression is that it has not. Is he reasonably satisfied with the progress of the meals-in-school scheme, and have any steps been taken to hasten it, in conjunction with the Minister of Education?
I now come to the main point with which I wish to deal, namely, the feeding-stuffs position, with particular reference to oats. This position is far from satisfactory. The change-over from white to wholemeal bread has had the expected effect; it has greatly aggravated an already serious shortage of animal feeding-stuffs in this country. I am afraid I remain unrepentant. If I had had my way, we should have stuck to white bread, and rationed it. But what is done is done. How have the Ministry of Food sought to deal with the problem? Their first mistake, last year, was to prohibit the export of oats from Scotland to England. I never knew why they did it, and the Order has now been rescinded. At the time I thought it a very silly Order, and I still think it very silly. In January of this year I wrote to the Minister of Food and warned him about the oats position, which was becoming serious. I got a reassuring reply; and the oats purchasing officer in Scotland told the farmers that he was prepared to take all their surplus oats from them. Subsequently, about 1,500 tons were purchased; but this was quite inadequate. Since then, thousands of quarters of oats in the North of Scotland have been allowed to go rotten on the farms, due to lack of adequate storage accommodation. During the past four months, in particular, the position has continued steadily to deterioriate. I hesitate to quote figures, because when the oats are lying about the farms in the countryside it is impossible to make more than a rough estimate; but I reckon that about a fortnight ago there was still approximately 40,000 quarters of sweet, marketable oats of the 1941 crop available and unpurchased in Aberdeenshire alone.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Mabane): When?

Flight-Lieutenant Boothby: About a fortnight or three weeks ago. Worse still, there were, and as far as I know still are, large quantities of unthreshed lofted oats lying about in lofts all over the North of Scotland. To my own knowledge one firm alone about ten days ago had 7,000 sacks rotting on the farms. It is no exaggeration to say that owing to the failure of the Ministry of Food to make adequate purchases of oats in time, a substantial proportion of the 1941 crop, which was a good crop, has been allowed to go bad. What are the excuses put forward by the Ministry of Food? There are three: bad harvesting, the necessity for building up reserves—the same excuse as they put forward in regard to potatoes—and lack of storage facilities. I deny the first; the Scottish farmers are very experienced farmers; some of the oats may have been a bit wet owing to bad weather conditions, but in the main it was a good crop, well harvested.

Mr. Mabane: I do not think that we have ever suggested that the crops were badly harvested, but rather that the weather conditions were bad.

Flight-Lieutenant Boothby: Some of them were a bit wet; but by and large, I think that they were got in in reasonable condition. With regard to the other two, I say most emphatically that adequate storage facilities should have been provided by the Ministry long ago. I should like to know how much storage accommodation is available to-day, which has not been commandeered by the Ministry, at the maltsters'. My submission to the Committee is that these oats should have been purchased by the Ministry of Food. It was open to the Ministry to deal with any surplus by broadening the basis of consumption, and taking the oats temporarily off the feeding stuffs ration.
What actually happened? The oats were neither bought nor released free of coupon; and at the same time poultry keepers all over the country were warned to cut down their stocks ruthlessly. I want to say quite frankly that I am against this wholesale murder of hens. I know that the doctors say that eggs consist almost entirely of water; but all I can say is that it is jolly good water, everybody likes it, and it is much better water than the ordinary kind. If it can possibly be avoided, I think it would be

a great pity to deprive the people of this country of eggs, which have been a staple of their diet for many years past. Let the Ministry now buy all the oats which are not sweet and commercially clean and release them to the poultry keepers. I have some here if they wish to see them; they are not bad at all. They are not the same as the sweet marketable oats, but there is not a hen-wife in the country who would not go down on her knees for them at the present moment to feed her hens. Until you have disposed of all these unclean oats, stop killing the hens. It seems to me fantastic, and really intolerable, that at a time when the poultry of this country are being slaughtered wholesale on account of the lack of feeding-stuffs, oats should be left lying on the farms and be allowed to go bad.
It is not so much the money they are losing that the farmers mind—of course, they do mind that, because they will only get for these oats half of what they would have got if they had been bought when they were in good, marketable, sweet condition—what they do mind, and this I beg hon. Members to believe, is the waste and the muddle, which induce in them a sense of complete frustration. I beg hon. Members to believe me when I say that we shall not get the farmers to sow as many oats for the next season as they would otherwise sow unless they can have an absolute guarantee that what they produce will be bought, and bought in time and at a reasonable price while the oats are good.
Over the past not Heaven itself hath power.
I am now concerned with the future, and with what is going to happen. A farm is a factory, and if it is not given clearance for its products, future production must in consequence be retarded. I understand that the Parliamentary Secretary has already taken vigorous action in the course of the last few days, and I hope that he may be able to announce to the Committee that he has purchased a large quantity if not the whole of the 1941 crop of oats. But while recognising the vigour with which he has acted, and the sympathy with which he has met the complaints I have made so continuously in the last few days, I would say to him that in war-time it really ought not to require Parliamentary pressure on the Floor of this House to induce Government Departments to take effective action in time; and


I think I am entitled to ask for definite assurances with regard to the future. I want to ask him whether the Minister will give a guarantee to purchase this year's crop in time; whether he will make adequate provision for the storage of oats in the future, because he knows very well that the fanners cannot possibly provide adequate accommodation for the amounts which will be sown; and whether he will now resume the propaganda for the consumption of oatmeal, which ought never to have been abandoned? It is high time that the English learned to make porridge and oatcakes. The shipping position is grave, we can produce all the oats we require, and there is no more delicious and no more nourishing food if you know how to cook it. The English do not know how, and it is the business of the Ministry of Food to teach them.
Finally, I want to ask my hon. Friend to reorganise the purchasing machinery of his Department at Colwyn Bay, so that unnecessary delays may be eliminated in the future. At present it takes five, six or seven weeks for them to make up their minds whether they will make a specific purchase or not. This has been the theme of every speech I have made in this House since the war broke out. I believe that when the history of this war and of the events which led up to it comes to be written, it will be said of this country that the main reason why things have gone so badly for us is our apparent inability to make quick decisions, and take the right action in time. Nearly always we have been too late. This has not hitherto been a characteristic of the Ministry of Food—to be too late; but it has been a characteristic of the purchasing department for cereals at Colwyn Bay. I beg the hon. Gentleman to give the assurances I have asked for, and to make sure that these delays and muddles never occur again.

Mr. Driberg: I shall be very brief in making two points only of, I hope, constructive criticism. The first concerns the Ministry of Food and the second the Ministry of Agriculture.
I want to enter a very strong protest against the methods adopted by some of the officials of the Ministry of Food in framing charges against people who are later found to have been innocent. At a recent Quarter Sessions a highly-respected

Essex auctioneer was accused of selling poultry at prices above the maximum. It was disclosed in evidence that the Ministry officials had given false names, had set all sorts of traps to induce the auctioneer to commit offences, and had in general behaved as agents provocateurs. Perhaps even more serious is the fact, also disclosed in evidence, that they had actually introduced into the markets poultry suffering from infectious diseases. This man, I am happy to say, was acquitted—the jury did not have to leave the court in order to find him innocent—but the case has caused the greatest dissatisfaction and distress among the fanning community of the neighbourhood.
I come to the Ministry of Agriculture, and here I would like to ask whether the Minister has established sufficient means of impressing on the Ministry of Labour the importance of agriculture, with reference to the call-up of men from the land. I have particularly in mind the case of the assistant machinery officer of an agricultural war executive committee known to me. This young man has built up and is entirely responsible for the organisation and maintenance of some 200 tractors and 2,000 other implements. But he is now on one month's final deferment. I may say that the executive committee regard him as so indispensable that they have even offered to give the Ministry of Labour a dozen tractor drivers instead of this one man. If he had been simply a tractor driver instead of a man controlling hundreds of tractor drivers, he would have been automatically exempt; indeed, if he had been a conscientious objector this trouble would not have arisen. I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he can take stronger steps still to impress this matter on the Ministry of Labour.
If I may conclude with two lines of verse, I should like to adapt a quotation from Oliver Goldsmith which may appeal to the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Scott) and the other Members who have rightly shown concern about the deterioration of potatoes and oats and other produce:
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where forms accumulate and crops decay.

Mr. Quibell: I think the Debate to-day is both timely and necessary. It is necessary from one particular point of


view in regard to the distribution of our food. First of all, one must congratulate the Minister of Agriculture on achieving a great measure of success so far as the productive side of agriculture is concerned. I think that most of us will lament the fact, however, that after producing this food—I mention potatoes particularly now—it has been so badly handled that I am afraid when the Minister again urges some of the farmers to do their best to produce huge crops, he will find that the answer will be, in many cases, "Yes, we are quite willing to produce the crops of food, but to see it lie and rot on our farms and be completely useless is demoralising at least to a lot of people in different parts of the country who are short of food." Take the potato crop. I was among the farmers yesterday morning at my local market. Someone came to me who had 70 or 80 tons of potatoes in one particular" pie "completely useless for human food. So far as animal food is concerned, it should have been processed so that the best use could have been made of it. If the minds of Members will go back to February, 1939, we had a big fight about the policy of dealing with this crop at that time. The same adviser advised the Minister at that time, in order to deal with this abundant crop, to throw out all potatoes over 1 lb. in weight. The same kind of individual is advising the Minister how to deal with the crop this year. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is the same man."] Exactly the same.
Last year there was a slight gap between the old potatoes and the new ones coming on to the market. I think the Minister was perhaps wise in retaining some potatoes, but surely there were records at the Ministry as to the amount of potatoes on hand in this country and the amount likely to be consumed. One would have thought that the processing factories which some of us fought for some years to have erected to deal with surplus potatoes could have had the potatoes which were surplus to needs to manufacture into potato flour, glucose, soluble starches, etc., which would help the nation's war effort. I understand that no small amount of potatoes have gone to rot because that has not been done. I should like the Minister, in his reply, to give to this Committee some assurance. Some of us live in rural areas and have to go round to ask farmers,

farm labourers and allotment holders to dig for victory and produce this essential foodstuff, and for the sight of unused foodstuff to meet one as one goes along roadsides in the potato-growing areas is demoralising, and gives the lie to every appeal we make to them to produce this food. I think practical suggestions should be made now. We are at war, and we are not trying to score party points. Practical suggestions to save food will save shipping.
There is another important food—carrots. I made a suggestion, I think a written one, to the Minister some time ago, as to how to deal with this food. I remember that some propaganda was directed against the Government and Parliament as to the way this particular crop had been dealt with. It was asserted that a large amount of this food was rotting in Covent Garden and other warehouses in different parts of the country. The primary cause of this has been, in my view, the fact that we have continued the senseless and wasteful practice of washing carrots in the field and then sending them to market. In the first place the carrot is grown on the cleanest land, because it is on light soil that carrots thrive the best. They are a clean crop. Why cannot they be sent straight to the market instead of being put into a tub and knocked about, bruised and damaged in the way that they have been? We have to put up with a lot of things in this war which we do not put up with in peace-time. Why not wash potatoes, why not wash turnips and swedes and the rest of the root crops? Carrots are spoiled by the process of washing them; they are damaged. In winter time—I hope the Minister will take note of this—they are washed, put into bags and become frozen in the bags. They are put into a warm warehouse, and they go bad, and damaging statements are made about merchants not marketing produce which is in the warehouses. I appeal to the Minister, and it is the Minister of Food in this case again, that so far as the Ministry is concerned its policy should be to wipe out the allowance made for washing carrots and have them sent in a sound natural condition to the markets of this country.
There is the question of price levels. I do not think that the Minister of Agriculture or any Member of this House could meet me or any other agricultural representative on any platform and defend the


relative prices of, say, barley and wheat and carrots and potatoes. I consider, and every agriculturist does who knows his business, that carrots have been far too high in price. I do not know, but I should think that in several parts of the country the price paid for carrots is too high.

Sir E. Shepperson: The price paid to labour for cleaning and marketing carrots is up to £20 and £25 an acre.

Mr. Quibell: I am not aware of that, and I should challenge that figure. I have had some experience of cleaning them, and I know exactly what the process is. The price of carrots has been too high in relation to that of potatoes. The weight of carrots per acre will be 25 per cent. more than potatoes, and yet the price per ton is greater for carrots. Take the case of wheat and barley. I wish the hon. Member for Leominster (Sir E. Shepperson) could travel with me to Don-caster, and see the result of a wrong price level. The brewers have become generous, and the Government have confirmed their generosity. The brewers have given an exorbitant price for barley, in order to secure for their industry the necessary raw material. They have decided on a price for barley which is far in excess of the price given for wheat. That is done at the expense of the Exchequer, because that money would otherwise go into E.P.T. Some farmers are growing barley on fields which last year were growing wheat. That is a wrong cropping system.

Sir E. Shepperson: We must have beer.

Mr. Quibell: If it is a case of bread or beer, I say that we must have bread. I like a glass of beer, but it is now more necessary than ever that wheat should come first. The Ministry of Agriculture should have in mind a balanced agricultural economy, both in regard to what we want to grow and to a proper price level, which will induce farmers to grow the essential crops, without undue pressure being put upon them. In regard to ploughing up, I think that, in view of the scarcity of concentrates and fertilisers, we should rely more on getting the best out of the land which is already ploughed up. I hope therefore this autumn and spring the Ministry will concentrate more on adequately cultivating the land already ploughed up, using all the available labour and machinery, to this end,

as I believe, that concentration on existing ploughed-up land will make the biggest contribution to our food supply and consequent victory. I do not want to end my remarks without paying a compliment to both Ministries, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food. They have in the main, in difficult circumstances, achieved a success that is remarkable. We wish them well and trust that they will strive to do still better and help to hasten that victory which we all so much desire to see.

Sir Joseph Lamb: It was with very great pleasure that I heard the statement of the Minister about what has been done during the past year. The Committee, although it appreciates what has been done, cannot fully appreciate the difficulties which the farmers have faced. The statement that we are now producing three-quarters of the food that we require in this country was not only satisfactory, but very enlightening. The Minister said also that there was a great deal to be done. Speaking for farmers, I can say that they will do their best to accomplish all that he asks of them, because they know the country's need. Satisfaction has already been expressed with the appearance of the countryside and the better farming which is seen. The better farming is simply due to the fact that farming pays better. It does not matter what our opinions may be at present, the pledges which have been given can be carried out only if the community are prepared to give the farmers a fair deal in future.
I want very briefly to make three points. I know that the Minister of Agriculture is also the Minister of Fisheries, but I am not sure whether it is to him or to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food that I ought to address this question. I listen with interest to the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson), who evidently is a great expert on the subject, when he talks on fish. I am not an expert on that subject. Perhaps the Committee will allow me to mention one small incident. When I travelled home a short time ago, there was a message for me at the station, to take home some fish. I bought some at a shop, and was asked whether I would like it cleaned. I thought that was a very good thing. They took away the head and entrails, and I am sorry to say that there was not a great deal left. I am


told that of the white fish which is caught a quarter is offal. I asked where that offal went. In this case, it was treated locally: to my mind, it was not properly dealt with. Realising the millions of tons of fish which are caught during the year and brought to our ports, one can appreciate that, in the heads and entrails, millions of tons of excess weight are sent from the ports of entry to the places of consumption, where it is not being properly dealt with.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: Does the hon. Member think that the fish would keep as well if it was gutted and the head taken off?

Sir J. Lamb: I have never heard that it would not. In any case, I am asking; for information, not giving it. My information is that a quarter of the weight which is handled at the port of entry and placed in boxes is offal. That means that a quarter of the timber which is used for packing it is unnecessary, and, above all, one quarter more transport than is necessary at a time when transport is so difficult. Can the Minister see whether it could be arranged that the offal could be retained at the factories, which, I understand, exist at all the ports of entry, and made into fish meal for stock or poultry and fertilisers for the land? I am not an expert on fish, but I hope that the Minister will reply on this question. It is necessary to improve our stock on the farms and this is a source from which something might be achieved.
On the question of sheep, the Minister said that we were under-stocked on the farms. It is with very great satisfaction that we are producing more milk than ever before and that the number of milk-producing cows is greater than on any previous occasion, but I hope that the Minister will do something to bring about an increase in the number of sheep. In my experience nothing can fertilise the land like sheep. There are certain classes of hill land and marsh land more suitable possibly for the grazing of sheep, and sheep require less of the imported concentrates than any other of our animals. I hope that the Minister will do all he can to encourage the increase of sheep on the farms. Many farmers, because of the changed forms of cultivation, have reduced their sheep considerably, and I think it is a mistake, but I hope that the

Minister will do everything he can with regard to that matter.

The question of potatoes has been mentioned by so many hon. Members that I do not wish to add anything, except that I know how difficult it is to estimate the crop of potatoes. It is only when the crop has really been got in that you can know what potatoes you have. A crop may look very well, but you have to wait until it has been harvested to know how it has turned out. If you ask farmers to grow as many potatoes as possible from the nation's point of view you ought also to see that there is no waste. A large part of the crop of potatoes has been wasted and something should be done to provide factories for the purpose of making alternative use of potatoes that cannot be used by the public. Will the Minister give some information as to what is being done to ensure that the crop when grown is not wasted, and, if not used for food, is used for other purposes?

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: We have been privileged to see some of the revolutionary reforms to which the Minister referred, and Members of the Committee would be failing in their duty if they did not congratulate him upon his workmanlike speech and the explanations he gave to the Committee. But we are not satisfied with the arrangement or the relationship between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food. The situation as regards prices and distribution, or, as the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Mr. D. Scott) said, getting home the supplies to the pantry, is wholly unsatisfactory and I do not think that anybody is entitled to any bouquets with regard to the organisation in this respect. Changes in recent times have emphasised the need for drastic revision. Lord Woolton said a few weeks ago that we must eat more vegetables and that the nation was beginning to recognise that we could not afford shipping space to bring produce to this country which could be produced here, but we ought not to be left to the mercy of wholesalers and racketeers in an out-of-date marketing system.
Everybody in the Committee knows, with regard to the £650,000,000 worth of foodstuffs that we grow or import into this country, that we have to pay another £850,000,000 to buy back those foodstuffs because of the out-of-date marketing system. Imagine the consumer having to


pay £1,500,000,000 for what is done as a fine job of work by the Ministry of Agriculture or the producers, because of this antiquated marketing system. I say to the Parliamentary Secretary, and I would like to say to the Noble Lord if he could be here, that, if they do not deal with the marketing system now, neither they nor any other Government will have an opportunity of doing so in the future. All the wonderful work that is being done by the Ministry of Agriculture will be doomed to disaster and failure if there is not a revolutionary change in the marketing system in this country. Fortunes have been made, and will be made, out of the change in dietary. We have pegged down prices all right in the matter of staple foods but we have left many other commodities to the wiles, the tricks and twists inside the market, especially in the wholesale fruit and vegetable market.
We have controlled the price of potatoes and carrots, and have controlled the price of tomatoes, but not the commodity. But have we controlled the price of lettuces, which have reached a price of 1s. 6d.? Have we controlled the price of radishes, for which a charge of 6d. per bunch has been made, when the growers are not getting anything like that price? Peas this week are ranging in price from 4d. to 1s. a lb. but the growers are not getting such prices. The prices of beans to-day are from 3d. to 8d. per lb., and fresh or French beans are up to 1s., 1s. 3d. and 1s. 6d. a lb. The Noble Lord and his publicity department tell the country to eat more vegetables, but the working-class families cannot afford these prices. The Minister of Agriculture may do all the encouraging in the world, but unless the Noble Lord and his advisers realise that they are inflating the cost of essential foodstuffs, they are not playing fair to the Ministry of Agriculture or to the nation. Cabbages, the price of which to the grower was ¾d. and 1d. a lb., have been 7d., 8d. and 9d. a lb. in recent weeks before they have reached the pantry of the consumer.
I would like to knew from the Parliamentary Secretary whether he believes that because a shortage is created by reason of war circumstances the people who inflate prices should have the kind of freedom demanded, say, by the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Sir W. Smithers)

a short time ago in this House in regard to fruit. Commodities are subject not only to the whims and fancies of these people in the trade but to all kinds of tricks in between the grower and the consumer. I will give an example. People are invading the fruit and vegetable market. In my own division in recent weeks a haulage contractor, who had never been a trader and had never known anything about trading in fruit and vegetables, was able, because he had an advantage in transport, to corner supplies of strawberries and make £40 clear profit in two days through handling baskets of strawberries. This sort of thing is not fair to small retailers or consumers, or even to the Minister himself.
I would ask the Minister whether he will look into the question of the drafting of these Maximum Price Orders. There is much loose phraseology, all kinds of allowances and "ifs" and "buts" and "ands." We in this House put Questions on several occasions about the price of cucumbers, which reached 3s. and 3s. 6d. each in the spring of last year. We managed to persuade the Minister to introduce a Maximum Price Order, but the wording of this Order suggested that fresh cucumbers under a certain length would be controlled at 10d. a lb. Now we find in Liverpool, five weeks ago, cucumbers being sold at 4s. a lb—not fresh cucumbers, but frozen cucumbers. Why the Order could not say" Fresh, frozen, pickled or any other kind of cucumber," Heaven only knows. These cucumbers have been put into refrigerators and brought out as frozen cucumbers so that the market could be exploited. I appeal to the Minister to get hold of his publicity men and advisers and sack the lot. If he will bring together a few ordinary people, consumers, housewives, one or two old grocers and members of war agricultural committees, who know how to put into simple language the manner in which a commodity should be controlled, he will help the nation. I make this appeal in all sincerity, because I believe far too much cheating is being provided for by these Orders. Cheating is not commendable. It is a social crime, and the Ministry by its foolishness is creating opportunities for this cheating every day.

Mrs. Tate: In the few moments I have at my disposal I want to urge one or two points upon the Minister. I think the whole country is grateful for the effi-


ciency with which, in the main, the Ministry of Food has been conducted since the outbreak of war, but there is little doubt that, if the war situation continues as at present, it will be necessary to cut down rations in some respects. If that should be so, may I urge that there should be differentiation between the rations given to sedentary workers and the rations of those employed in mining and the heavy industries? Up to date we have all had more or less the same rations but there is a strong case, if rations have to be reduced, for a reduction in the case of sedentary workers, particularly those above a certain age. On no account should miners and workers in heavy industries have their rations reduced.
I would like to say a word or two about the distribution of food in the rural areas. Shopping facilities for housewives in rural areas are becoming next to impossible through the necessity of cutting down the bus services which used to take them into the towns. Many rural villages have no fishmonger and owing to the reduction in poultry supplies, egg production has been very much reduced. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson), who made such an interesting contribution to the Debate, put forward a scheme whereby there could be distribution of fish in rural areas and I sincerely hope the Minister will give it his very serious consideration. I would like to endorse what was said about the regret felt that we should have gone on to the standard loaf, but as we have gone on to this loaf, I think there is little excuse for the Ministry of Food not having informed poultry-keepers much earlier that it would be necessary for them to reduce their flocks. The moment it was decided to go on to the standard loaf, it became obvious that the food supplies of poultry-keepers would be reduced and they should have been told earlier in the season, instead of having this shock and great injustice imposed upon them so late in the day.

Mr. De la Bère: Does the hon. Lady realise that the cause of this is non co-operation between the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Agriculture? Over and over again it is a case of the same old tricks and ways.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Mabane): My hon. Friend the Member for Evesham (Mr. De la Bère) has just made a characteristic

interruption but the fact that the Votes of both Departments were put down for to-day shows there is co-operation between them, at any rate in this respect. I think the Committee will appreciate the difficulty that I am faced with in replying to this Debate. It is appropriate, indeed, that these two Votes should be put down for the same day, but it presents me with a dilemma in that I have to endeavour, on one hand, to deal in detail with many of the interesting and important points raised by Members, or, on the other hand, to make a statement about the work of my Department, as is customary on Supply Days. However, I shall do my best to combine both methods. First, I think the Minister of Agriculture would wish me to say, on his behalf and my own, that we have every reason to be satisfied with the general tone of Members references to the Departments. The hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Front Bench opposite seemed to be giving us a vote of thanks in certain parts of his speech and we are grateful for that. Throughout the Debate there has been a general atmosphere of satisfaction coupled with important' criticisms in detail.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) and others have raised the question of the liaison between the two Departments. It is very important. The problems of the Ministry of Food are divided into two classes—supply and distribution. The problems of supply again divide naturally into the problems of home-produced and imported food-stuffs and it is of the first importance that there should be the closest collaboration between the Ministry of Food and the agricultural departments in this matter of home-produced food-stuffs. After all, the Ministry of Food is the principal customer—I suppose, in the last resort, the only customer—of the agricultural departments. It is the duty of the Ministry of Food to indicate to the agricultural departments what foodstuffs are required to be produced. It is the duty of the two Departments to do their best to secure that production is diverted into the proper channels. I think it right that the Ministry of Food should pay a tribute to the agricultural departments and the farmers for the way in which production has been diverted in the directions we would wish.
There is, of course, a very necessary relationship between the programme of home production and the import pro-


gramme. They must be dovetailed. Those things that we find it difficult to get from abroad we must do our best to produce at home. In the case of those things which it is easy to get from abroad, we can curtail production at home. But there are, of course, severe limitations. Clearly, we are limited in what we can get from abroad, but the limitations on home production, too, are severe. There is in one respect a special difficulty in connection with home production. After all, we know that we shall not get from abroad more than we expect. We are likely to get less. Sometimes, too, with regard to home production, the realisation is less than the estimate, but sometimes the realisation is greater than the estimate. We may be deceived because the estimate is too low. In respect of some commodities, conditions of glut or near-glut arise. After all, that happened in peace-time; then the producers suffered and the crops were sometimes wasted.
It is the business of the Ministry of Food to prevent both those things—to prevent the producers from suffering, and prevent the crops from being wasted. I think that, on the whole, price regulation puts the producers in a very much better position than ever they were before, and I would say that the waste in total is negligible and far less than ever it was before. After all, there are vigilant eyes, both in the House and outside. The country is waste conscious. One does not need to be very long at the Ministry of Food before realising that the country and hon. Members in particular are very eager to watch for any evidence of waste. I would say that much apparent waste is not really waste at all, and in so far as there is ultimate waste, as far as I am able to judge that waste is substantially unavoidable.
In the Debate there has been considerable reference to potatoes. The hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Barnes), the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Colonel Elliot), the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) and other hon. Members have spoken of the waste of potatoes. Potatoes are a very good example. Let it be remembered that last year we were short of potatoes. I have here a cutting from the Press of last year:
Potato and fruit shortages upset food experts. The potato scarcity and the surplus

sugar for making jam for which there is little fruit available are striking examples of official shortsightedness. Potatoes are scarce because the Ministry of Food did not make sufficient allowance for any lateness of the potato crop.
Last year we were short, but this year the Department determined to ensure properly against any such shortage. A reserve stock of long-keeping potatoes was laid in so that there should be no gap between the two crops. Let it be remembered that in pre-war days the gap was filled by imports from North Africa, the Canaries, and the Channel Islands. There are no such imports now.

Mr. Quibell: The Ministry knew about that last year.

Mr. Mabane: That may well have been, but last year the new crop was extremely late, and we were advised that this year we might expect it to be late, too. But the fates were unkind. Climatic conditions were different. The new crop became ready nearly three weeks earlier and it became available in extremely heavy quantities. There was the reserve of long-keeping potatoes. Naturally, they deteriorated to a certain extent owing to long keeping, but when one gets to the end of the matter, when one finds what has been made available from that store for processing, stock feeding, and so on, one is able to say that the resultant waste—it is not pure waste of potatoes if they are used for stock-feeding or processing—is no greater than 20,000 tons, a little more than two days' supply for human consumption. The new crop is now coming along. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture said, the crop is extremely heavy. We have to do our best to secure that it is made available for human consumption. All we can do is to hope that our propaganda will result in potatoes being used extensively in place of wheat. The wheat stock position is good, but nevertheless, we would much prefer that potatoes, which are best used for human consumption, should be so used when this abundance is upon us.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Flight-Lieutenant Boothby) raised the matter of oats. He and I have been in the House for some time, he longer than I, and I always remember him as an advocate for the oats growers of Scotland. Since the matter was brought to my attention I have been doing my best to get accurate information


about the position. It is very difficult to get accurate information as to how many oats there are. I think that a week or so ago there were about 7,000 tons in the area from Kincardine to Ross and of those about 6,000 tons were in Aberdeen. My hon. and gallant Friend knows that last year there was a shortage. The main use of oats is for feeding on the farms, and they are also required for the town horses, and so on.

Flight-Lieutenant Boothby: And for human consumption.

Mr. Mabane: The first use is for feeding on the farms. A year ago there was a shortage, and in some ancillary uses a severe shortage. Throughout the year the Ministry have been supporting the market. There was a time when, in order to avoid the possibility of a shortage, there was a restriction on the movement of oats from Scotland to England. That restriction was lifted last November and there has been passage of oats both to England and to Northern Ireland. As my hon. and gallant Friend will agree, the harvest was taken in bad conditions and some of the farmers threshed earlier than they ought to have done. Consequently, some part of the crop was not in the keeping condition in which it might have been. Throughout the year the Department have been doing their best to support the market and at the present time, the Department are prepared to take out of the market the sweet millable oats from the 1941 crop as and when they are offered, so that there should be no waste on that account. I hope my hon. and gallant Friend may rest assured that his constituents have been well looked after by the representations he has made.

Mr. Snadden: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the subject of oats, can he say whether this cereal is being considered in relation to its incorporation in the loaf?

Mr. Mabane: Probably my hon. Friend is referring to the possibility of dilution. Certainly, that is being considered. There is a limitation to the extent to which oats may be used for dilution, but the whole matter is under consideration, so that oats may be obtained for dilution to the extent deemed necessary and desirable.

Flight-Lieutenant Boothby: May I take it that the hon. Gentleman is now making a firm offer for all the sweet millable oats in the North of Scotland?

Mr. Mabane: The Department are prepared to take such oats as are offered to them. I cannot be much plainer. I think I have indicated by the illustrations I have given some of the difficulties of managing our home supplies. The management of imported supplies is very difficult and different. We have to consider, first, the shifting strategic position of the war. We have to have a flexible organisation so that as the areas within which the war is being conducted change so we may change our supply policy. On the other hand, there has to be the most careful planning ahead, planning for production, for manufacture, and for research, so that imported foodstuffs may come to us in the smallest possible bulk and thus save as much shipping as may be. Perhaps I may be allowed to give an example of the first difficulty. The entry of Japan into the war as a belligerent, the successes of Japan, have closed to us very important sources of supply; I would mention tea, rice and edible oils. The Ministry of Food have' to be ready with alternative sources of supply and ready to use other commodities in place of those no longer available. I would draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that the tea ration has not been reduced, and that although rice may be in short supply, there will be other commodities in order that milk puddings may still be available to the general public. In regard to the planning of production and manufacture, I would mention cheese, dried eggs and dried milk. It is not by accident that cheese, which was in such short supply some time ago, is now abundant. It is the result of most careful planning.

Mr. E. Walkden: And it is due to the Merchant Navy.

Mr. Mabane: And the Merchant Navy Production was undertaken in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and in the United States. Dried eggs represent a very long period of research and preparation for manufacture. Thus, over the whole range of food commodities, similar tales could be told of the way in which planning has been undertaken to provide the country with a varied and reasonably


abundant diet. The guiding principle of the Ministry of Food is not to restrict but to provide, and that applies no less to its attitude towards the problems of distribution and supply. The Ministry of Food do not regard rationing as a good thing in itself. Rationing is undertaken only when special circumstances make it necessary—shortage of supply, the tendency for prices to rise beyond the means of those who ought to be able to purchase and so on. The purpose of rationing is not so much to restrict as to equalise.
Often the Department is urged to expand the area of rationing, and I very much welcomed what the hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Barnes) said when he approved of the policy of the Department in limiting the area of strict rationing and being very careful how it extends the points rationing scheme. As he said, we do not want the points rationing system overloaded. He will have observed that one commodity was transferred to the points rationing system yesterday, and I am sure he will not object to that. As he knows well, we do not confine ourselves in our efforts to secure equality of distribution to rationing schemes—strict rationing, group rationing and points rationing. There are other schemes, such as price control and voluntary arrangements within particular trades.
The Department must also do its best to help other Departments, particularly the Ministry of War Transport, and it is to save transport that the Department is undertaking, or is about to undertake, many of its most important and difficult schemes. Rationalisation of milk has been mentioned. A sector scheme has been planned to apply to distributors generally. There is also the tomato distribution scheme. The hon. Member for Streatham raised the question of fish, and read an extract from a letter he had received from the Minister of War Transport, which indicated very plainly that the Department is very anxious to rationalise the distribution of fish with the object of saving transport. The Committee will appreciate that when this Department or other Departments undertake schemes of rationalisation which have the effect, or appear to have the effect, of bearing hardly upon individuals, there are often vigorous protests in the House

on behalf of those who are adversely affected. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Woods) loudly applauded what the hon. Member for Streatham said, but then objected in the course of his speech to a scheme of rationalisation which had been carried through in another industry.

Mr. Woods: I was not objecting to the scheme of rationalisation. I was appealing to the Minister to see that when these schemes of rationalisation are put into operation, they are conducted efficiently and there is no exploitation by those who have power over the general consumers.

Mr. Mabane: So often a scheme which is admitted to be an efficient scheme by those who are not affected adversely is considered to be an inefficient scheme by those who are. I hope that when the fish scheme comes before the House, if it does, we shall have the support of all hon. Members who so rightly cheered the speech of my hon. Friend.

Mr. E. Walkden: Why does the hon. Member say "if it does "? Is it not likely to come?

Mr. Mabane: If and when.

Mr. Walkden: We hope it will.

Mr. Mabane: Perhaps we shall have the support of all hon. Members in bringing any scheme of rationalisation to fruition. The National Milk Scheme has been mentioned by a number of Members.

Sir J. Lamb: Is my hon. Friend going to say anything about fish heads?

Mr. Mabane: My hon. Friend pointed out that much waste of transport might be avoided if fish were gutted and headed at the ports. To the best of my knowledge, fish are gutted and a great many are filleted, but we are taking note of his point to see whether the heads should be taken off as well.
The National Milk Scheme has progressed very well indeed. My hon. Friend, who had so much to do with this scheme, will be glad to hear that the percentage of the possible beneficiaries—expectant mothers and children—who are taking advantage of the scheme has risen from 70 per cent. to 87 per cent. There are now 3,022,000 persons taking advantage of the National Milk Scheme. That is one way whereby we are able to secure the distribution of this very vital food. There are other devices. In the case of


potatoes and carrots the whole crop was taken over, prices established and distribution arranged, and in the case of tomatoes, which are in short supply and are not essential, distribution has been arranged by a scheme of collaboration between producers and distributors. It appears to me, as a newcomer to the Department, that the Department is not wedded to any one hard-and-fast plan, but is prepared to act as the situation demands and adopt expedients which will best secure equal distribution of the foodstuffs over the whole of the population who need them. The hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) spoke on a subject with which he is very familiar—the marketing of vegetables. He knows that few problems are so difficult. Vegetables are a highly perishable commodity and are difficult to transport. I can assure him that the marketing of vegetables is commanding very earnestly the attention of my Noble Friend at the present time.
I should like to make one reference in connection with distribution, and remind the Committee of the work which has been done by the distributive trades, particularly the shopkeepers and their assistants. They have an extremely difficult task these days. They are troubled with forms and regulations at a time when the proper needs of the Ministry of Labour are depleting their staffs. To-day shop assistants have to be more skilled than ever before. We have not been troubled with food queues, but often food queues have been the result, not of shortages of food but of sheer inability of the assistants to deal with the press of customers at a particular time. Therefore, I appeal to the public to do their best to spread their shopping, when they can, evenly over the day and evenly over the week. Thereby they will be greatly helping both the Minister of Labour and the shop assistants in dealing with this very difficult problem of war-time distribution.
I should like to refer to one other aspect of the Department's work—the emergency and cognate services. When heavy air raiding was general, the Ministry of Food had an important piece of work to do, shall I say, in restoring nerves by filling bellies. I was able to realise that at the Ministry of Home Security. Although in London and in inland towns we have almost forgotten about air raids,

in the coastal belt they went on and the Ministry's emergency service has been maintained, and it has been bringing succour to those towns which in the last year have been raided and they have never failed. Out of the emergency services grew the British Restaurants, and they are increasingly popular institutions. There are now over 1,600 of them and they are being opened at the rate of about two a day. Side by side with the development of British Restaurants, there is a continuous development of canteens at industrial establishments and commercial premises. It may be argued that this form of provision is really not fair, in that people are getting more than their ration, but in a way it is fair to argue that those who take their food at canteens are a kind of priority class and that it is a good thing to feed the man and the woman at the job. That is the view of the Minister of Labour and of my Noble Friend, and I feel that so long as we do that we are not doing what the Committee would wish us not to do. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about meals in schools? "] That is primarily a matter for the Board of Education, but I can assure the hon. Member that they and the Ministry of Food are extremely anxious that meals in schools should become, as nearly as possible, universal.
I have done my best to deal with most of the points that have been raised. I feel very much a newcomer to this Department and I feel that I am still regarding its work as an outsider. I am taking a kind of objective view of it, and it appears to me that its outstanding characteristic is that its problems are never static. Things never stand still. There are changes in the sources of supply, there are changes in the character of home production, there are changes in prices. From day to day the Ministry is on the move, and I feel that it is a very good thing that it should be on the move. After all, few things have such an important bearing on morale as food. It might well be said that the Ministry of Information works for the good of our souls. My noble Friend works for the good of our bodies. The Ministry of Information gives us, as a sign for victory, the Fifth Symphony. I suggest as a slogan for my noble Friend, "Vitamins for Victory." It is not our job to prophesy. We know that military necessities must come first. It may be


that military necessities will make the food situation more difficult. Who can say? I am not prophesying. All I can say is that the country would agree to any restriction if it brought victory a day nearer. My Noble Friend's object is that, if there is to be any further tightening of the belt, he will desire that the hands of all shall go to the buckle.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £2,382,732, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the charges for the following Departments connected with Agriculture and Food for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, namely:

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1942.



£


Class VI, Vote 7, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries
2,382,552


Class X, Vote 1, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (War Services)
90


Class X, Vote 4, Ministry of Food
90



£2,382,732"

THE CHAIRMAN then proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House this day to put severally the Questions, "That the total amounts of the Votes outstanding in the several Classes of the Civil Estimates, including Supplementary Estimates, and the total amounts of the Votes outstanding in the Estimates for the Revenue Departments, the Navy, Army, and Air Services, be granted for the Services defined in those Classes and Estimates."

CLASS I.

"That a sum, not exceeding £1,890,770, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class I of the Civil Estimates, namely:



£


1. House of Lords Offices
40,038


2. House of Commons
335,661


3. Registration of Electors
20,000


4. Treasury and Subordinate Departments (including a Supplementary sum of £17,390)
541,063


5. Privy Council Office
13,528


6. Privy Seal Office
5,362


7. Charity Commission
25,108


8. Civil Service Commission
15,605






£


9. Exchequer and Audit Department
152,860


10. Friendly Societies Deficiency
2,968


11. Government Actuary
13,134


12. Government Chemist
60,692


13. Government Hospitality
13,000


14. Import Duties Advisory Committee
2,907


15. The Mint
90


16. National Debt Office
5,012


17. National Savings Committee
300,420


18. Public Record Office
28,305


19. Public Works Loan Commission
14,080


20. Repayments to the Local Loans Fund
25,000


21. Royal Commissions, &amp;c.
25,000


22. Miscellaneous Expenses
50,049


23. Secret Service
90


24. Treasury Chest Fund
43,260


25. Tithe Redemption Commission
90


26. Scottish Home Department
154,560


27. Repayments to the Civil Contingencies Fund
2,888



£1,890,770"

Question put, and agreed to.

CLASS II.

"That a sum, not exceeding £9,153,296, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class II of the Civil Estimates, namely:



£


1. Foreign Office
710,275


2. Diplomatic and Consular Services (including a Supplementary sum of £41,500)
1,931,039


3. League of Nations
1,010


4. Dominions Office
51,525


5. Dominion Services (including a Supplementary sum of £36,500)
210,862


6. Oversea Settlement
90


7. Colonial Office
180,000


8. Colonial and Middle Eastern Services
3,395,662


8A. Site for Moslem Mosque
60,000


9. Development and Welfare (Colonies, &amp;c.)
1,107,000


10. Development and Welfare (South African High Commission Territories, &c.)
24,000


11. India and Burma Services
1,470,417


12. Imperial War Graves Commission
11,416



£9,153,296"

Question put, and agreed to.

CLASS III.

"That a sum not exceeding £9,572,626, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class III of the Civil Estimates, namely:



£


2. Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum
76,990


3. Police, England and Wales
5,739,710


4. Prisons, England and Wales
853,812


5. Approved Schools, &amp;c, England and Wales
479,500


6. Supreme Court of Judicature, &amp;c.
90


7. County Courts
333,317


8. Land Registry
45,293


9. Public Trustee
10,090


10. Law Charges
132,618


11. Miscellaneous Legal Expenses
18,531


Scotland.


12. Police, Scotland
1,032,315


13. Prisons, Scotland
108,479


14. Approved Schools, &amp;c, Scotland
60,750


15. Scottish Land Court
4,278


16. Law Charges and Courts of Law
44,258


17. Register House, Edinburgh
22,878


Ireland.


18. Northern Ireland Services
3,836


19. Supreme Court of Judicature, &amp;c. Northern Ireland
8,566


20. Irish Land Purchase Services
597,315



£9,572,626"

Question put, and agreed to.

CLASS IV.

"That a sum, not exceeding £51,130,417, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class IV of the Civil Estimates, namely:



£


1. Board of Education
38,263,118


2. British Museum
99,245


3. British Museum (Natural History)
57,712


4. Imperial War Museum
8,184


5. London Museum
2,792


6. National Gallery
22,882


7. National Maritime Museum
7,508


8. National Portrait Gallery
5,976


9. Wallace Collection
8,070


10. Scientific Investigation, &amp;c
212,098






£


11. Universities and Colleges, Great Britain
1,149,000


12. Broadcasting Scotland.
6,000,000


13. Public Education
5,283,414


14. National Galleries
8,739


15. National Library
1,679



£51,130,417"

Question put, and agreed to.

CLASS V.

"That a sum, not exceeding £118,991,824, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class V of the Civil Estimates, namely:



£


1. Ministry of Health
17,402,771


2. Board of Control
139,495


3. Registrar General's Office
166,722


4. National Insurance Audit Department
99,770


5. Friendly Societies Registry
30,060


6. Old Age Pensions
32,650,000


7. Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions
16,525,000


8. Ministry of Labour and National Service
20,480,000


9. Grants in respect of Employment Schemes
1,500,000


10. Commissioner for Special Areas (England and Wales)
90


11. Assistance Board
5,870,000


12. Special Areas Fund
600,000


13. Financial Assistance in Special and other Areas
60,800


14. Supplementary Pensions
20,460,000


Scotland.


15. Department of Health
2,966,056


16. Board of Control
14,144


17. Registrar General's Office
26,826


18. Commissioner for Special Areas
90



£118,991,824"

Question put, and agreed to.

CLASS VI.

"That a sum, not exceeding £9,656,771, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class VI of the Civil Estimates, namely:



£


1. Board of Trade
984,583


2. Mercantile Marine Services
862,614


3. Department of Overseas Trade
229,073

4. Exports Credits
195,733


6. Office of Commissioners of Crown Lands
26,099


8. Surveys of Great Britain
400,495


9. Forestry Commission
425,000


10. Roads, &amp;c.
4,864,500


11. Miscellaneous Transport Services
19,733


12. Development Fund
411,000


13. Development Grants
334,400


14. Department of Scientific and Industrial Research
478,596


15. State Management Districts
90


16. Clearing Offices
90


Scotland.


17. Department of Agriculture
403,201


18. Fisheries
21,329


19. Herring Industry
235



£9,656,771"

Question put, and agreed to.

CLASS VII.

"That a sum, not exceeding £10,498,737, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class VII of the Civil Estimates, namely:



£


1. Art and Science Buildings, Great Britain
134,435


2. Houses of Parliament Buildings
43,140


3 Labour and Health Buildings, Great Britain
373,665


4. Miscellaneous Legal Buildings, Great Britain
64,050


5. Osborne
11,855


6A. Ministry of Works and Planning
4,415,400


7. Miscellaneous Works Services (including a Supplementary sum of £2,000)
114,035


8. Public Buildings Overseas
60,710


9. Royal Palaces
75,165


10. Revenue Buildings
846,270


11. Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens
145,435


12. Rates on Government Property
2,128,803


13. Stationery and Printing
2,041,004


14. Peterhead Harbour
7,000


15. Works and Buildings in Ireland
37,770



£10,498,737"

Question put, and agreed to.

CLASS VIII.

"That a sum, not exceeding £24,094,008, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will

come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class VIII of the Civil Estimates, namely:



£


1. Merchant Seamen's War Pensions
152,508


2. Ministry of Pensions
21,679,500


3. Royal Irish Constabulary Pensions, &amp;c
760,000


4. Superannuation and Retired Allowances (including a Supplementary sum of £2,000)
1,502,000



£24,094,008"

Question put, and agreed to.

CLASS IX.

"That a sum, not exceeding £32,517,859, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for expenditure in respect of the services included in Class IX of the Civil Estimates, namely:



£


1. Exchequer Contributions to Local Revenues, England and Wales
28,018,000


2. Exchequer Contributions to Local Revenues, Scotland
4,499,859



£32,517,859"

Question put, and agreed to.

CLASS X.

"That a sum, not exceeding £1,300, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Unclassified Services of the Civil Estimates, namely:



£


2. Ministry of Aircraft Production
90


3. Ministry of Economic Warfare
90


7. Ministry of Information
90


8. Ministry of Labour and National Service (War Services)
90


10A. Ministry of Fuel and Power
100


11. Ministry of Supply
90


12. War Damage (Business and Private Chattels)
90


13. War Damage Commission
90


14. Ministry of War Transport
90


15A. Ministry of Works and Planning (War Services)
100


16. Department of Agriculture, Scotland (War Services)
90

£


17. Department of Health for Scotland (War Services)
90


18. Scottish Home Department (War Services)
100


19. Office of the Minister of Production
100



£1,300"

Question put, and agreed to.

REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1942.

"That a sum, not exceeding £78,866,970, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in the Estimates for Revenue Departments, namely:




£


1. Customs and Excise
…
4,196,800


2. Inland Revenue
…
8,147,170


3. Post Office
…
66,523,000




£78,866,970 "

Question put, and agreed to.

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1942.

"That a sum, not exceeding £1,700, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Navy Services, namely:



£


2. Victualling and Clothing for the Navy
100


3. Medical Establishments and Services
100


4. Civilians employed on Fleet Services
100


5. Educational Services
100


6. Scientific Services
100


7. Royal Naval Reserves
100


8. Shipbuilding, Repairs, Maintenance, &amp;c.:



Section I.—Personnel
100


Section II.—Matériel
100


Section III.—Contract Work
100


9. Naval Armaments
100


10. Works, Buildings and Repairs at Home and Abroad
100


11. Miscellaneous Effective Services
100


12. Admiralty Office
100


13. Non-Effective Services (Navaland Marine)—Officers
100


14. Non-Effective Services (Navaland Marine)—Men
100


15. Civil Superannuation, Allowances and Gratuities
100


16. Merchant Shipbuilding, &amp;c.
100



£1,700 "

Question put, and agreed to.

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1942.

"That a sum, not exceeding £1,400, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge

which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Army Services, namely:



£


2. Territorial Army and Reserve Forces
100


3. Medical Services
100


4. Educational Establishments
100


5. Quartering and Movements
100


6. Supplies, Road Transport and Remounts
100


7. Clothing
100


8. General Stores
100


9. Warlike Stores
100


10. Works, Buildings and Lands
100


11. Miscellaneous Effective Services
100


12. War Office
100


13. Half-Pay, Retired Pay and other Non-Effective Charges for Officers
100


14. Pensions and other Non-Effective Charges for Warrant Officers, Noncommissioned Officers, Men and others
100


15. Civil Superannuation. Compensation and Gratuities
100



£1,400 "

Question put, and agreed to.

AIR ESTIMATES, 1942.

"That a sum, not exceeding £1,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for Expenditure in respect of the Air Services, namely:



£


2. Quartering, Non-Technical Stores, Supplies and Transportation
100


3. Technical and Warlike Stores
100


4. Works, Buildings and Lands
100


5. Medical Services
100


6. Educational Services
100


7. Reserve and Auxiliary Forces
100


8. Civil Aviation
100


9. Meteorological and Miscellaneous Effective Services
100


10. Air Ministry
100


11. Half-Pay, Pensions, and other Non-Effective Services
100



£1,000 "

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported upon the next Sitting Day.

Committee to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

NAVY, ARMY, AND AIR EXPENDITURE, 1940.

Considered in Committee.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

I. Whereas it appears by the Navy Appropriation Account for the year ended the 31st day of March, 1941, that, as shown in the Schedule hereunto appended, the total surpluses and deficits on Navy Votes for that year are as follows:


Total Surpluses, namely:
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.


Surpluses of actual as compared with estimated receipts (Votes 2–16)



10,782,690
17
10


Total Deficits, namely:


Deficiencies of actual as compared with estimated receipts (Vote 1)
12,897,167
16
3





Excesses of actual over estimated gross expenditure
382,046,091
11
7









394,943,259
7
10


Net Deficit (charged to the Vote of Credit)



£384,160,568
10
0

And whereas the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorised the application of surplus receipts realised under Votes 2 to 16 towards making good the deficit in receipts under Vote 1.

SCHEDULE.


No. of Vote.
Navy Services, 1940, Votes.
Deficits.
Surpluses


Excesses of actual over estimated gross Expenditure.
Deficiences of actual as compared with estimated Receipts.
Surpluses of actual as compared with estimated Receipts.




£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.


1
Wages, &c, of Officers and Men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and of certain other Personnel serving with the Fleet
32,352,738
16
7
12,897,167
16
3
—


2
Victualling and Clothing for the Navy
28,460,258
6
7
—
3,644,689
19
6


3
Medical Establishments and Services
1,624,282
11
8
—
43,818
18
3


4
Civilians employed on Fleet Services
2,611,647
7
0
—
2,198
8
10


5
Educational Services
293,255
6
5
—
67,766
1
3


6
Scientific Services
1,440,281
17
2
—
91,865
1
4


7
Royal Naval Reserves
53,960
15
8
—
68
0
2


8
Shipbuilding, Repairs, Maintenance, &amp;c.:
292,291,306
12
11

6,672,863
12
5



Section I—Personnel




Section II—Matériel




Section III—Contract Work
—


9
Naval Armaments



10

Works, Buildings and Repairs at Home and Abroad


16

Merchant Shipbuilding


11
Miscellaneous Effective Services
10,756,389
10
3
—
181,236
13
1


12
Admiralty Office
3,136,382
16
11
—
8,544
3
8


13
Non-effective Services (Naval and Marine)—Officers
2,025,436
2
7
—
8,585
3
4


14
Non-effective Services (Naval and Marine)—Men
5,689,516
11
10
—
61,039
0
11


15
Civil Superannuation, Allowances and Gratuities
1,259,002
6
4
—
15
15
1


—
Balances Irrecoverable and Claims abandoned
51,632
9
8
—
—




382,046,091
11
7
12,897,167
16
3
Total Surpluses




Total Deficits £394,943,259 7 10
£10,782,690 17 10




Net Deficit met from Vote of Credit £384,160,568 10 0"

Resolved,
That the application of such surpluses be sanctioned."—[Captain Crookshanh.]

"II. Whereas it appears by the Army Appropriation Account for the year ended the 31st day of March, 1941, that, as shown in the Schedule hereunto appended, the total surpluses and deficits on Army Votes for that year are as follows:



£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.


Total Surpluses, namely:


Surpluses of actual as compared with estimated receipts (Votes 2–15)

14,040,762
15
4


Total Deficits, namely:


Deficiencies of actual as compared with estimated receipts (Vote 1)
19,693,016
16
4



Excesses of actual over estimated gross expenditure
444,993,784
10
7







464,686,801
6
11


Net Deficit (charged to the Vote of Credit)
£450,646,038
11
7

And whereas the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorised the application of surplus receipts realised under Votes a to 15 towards making good the deficit in receipts under Vote I.

SCHEDULE.


No. of Vote.
Army Services, 1940, Votes.
Deficits.
Surpluses


Excesses of actual over estimated gross Expenditure.
Deficiences of actual as compared with estimated Receipts.
Surpluses of actual as compared with estimated Receipts.




£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.


1
Pay, &amp;c., of the Army
175,759,920
14
11
19,693,916
16
4
—


2
Territorial Army and Reserve Forces
4,254,149
3
1
—
59,516
1
6


3
Medical Services
11,173,084
11
7
—
85,434
10
2


4
Educational Establishments
1,683,191
7
1
—
6,986
2
7


5
Quartering and Movements
34,971,605
3
0
—
356,878
18
2


6
Supplies, Road Transport and Remounts
88,214,234
6
9
—
1,477,721
12
5


7
Clothing
2,659,571
0
11
—
2,318,742
10
6


8
General Stores
13,462,128
9
0
—
1,156,267
11
9


9
Warlike Stores
5,262,789
13
6
—
6,653,392
2
2


10
Works, Buildings and Lands
81,498,108
1
6
—
401,075
6
7


11
Miscellaneous Effective Services
14,798,503
2
8
—
98,738
1
0


12
War Office
2,061,877
13
6
—
5,159
2
9


13
Half-pay, Retired Pay and other Non-effective Charges for Officers
3,242,229
6
0
—
696,299
11
8


14
Pensions and other Noneffective Charges for Warrant Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, men and others
5,067,144
5
10
—
724,364
18
6


15
Civil Superannuation, Compensation and Gratuities
272,613
18
4
—
186
5
7


—
Balances Irrecoverable and Claims Abandoned
612,633
12
11
—
—




444,993,784
10
7
19,693,016
16
4
Total surpluses




Total Deficits £464,686,801 6 11
£14,040,762 15 4




Net Deficit met from Vote of Credit £450,646,038 11 7"

Resolved,
That the application of such surpluses be sanctioned."—[Captain Crookshanh.]

"III. Whereas it appears by the Air Appropriation Account for the year ended the 31st day of March, 1941, that, as shown in the Schedule hereto ended, the total surpluses and deficits on Air Votes for that year are as follows:


Total Surpluses, namely:
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.


Surpluses of actual as compared with estimated receipts (Votes 2–11)



14,507,555
10
8


Total Deficits, namely:


Deficiencies of actual as compared with estimated receipts (Vote 1)
14,901,974
2
4





Excesses of actual over estimated gross expenditure
269,068,510
7
11









283,970,484
10
3


Net Deficit (charged to the Vote of Credit)
£269,462,928
19
7

And whereas the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorised the application of surplus receipts realised under Votes 2 to 11 towards making good the deficit in receipts under Vote 1.

SCHEDULE.


No. of Vote.
Air Services, 1940, Votes.
Deficits.
Surpluses


Excesses of actual over estimated gross Expenditure.
Deficiences of actual as compared with estimated Receipts.
Surpluses of actual as compared with estimated Receipts.




£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.


1
Pay, &amp;c, of the Air Force
45,260,207
5
11
14,901,974
2
4
—


2
Quartering Non-Technical Stores, Supplies and Transportation
43,230,162
17
11
—
362,320
9
9


3
Technical and Warlike Stores
78,419,332
1
8
—
13,112,052
19
3


4
Works, Buildings and Lands
78,564,869
5
10
—
627,641
17
9


5
Medical Services
1,861,809
12
11
—
17,144
18
1


6
Educational Services
279,846
9
2
—
3,536
6
10


7
Reserve and Auxiliary Forces
23,544
4
2
—
1,664
3
3


8
Civil Aviation
4,041,979
9
4
—
257,833
0
8


9
Meteorological and Miscellaneous Effective Services
14,003,228
0
0
—
79,141
12
8


10
Air Ministry
2,771,620
9
0
—
1,783
10
1


11
Half-Pay, Pensions and other Non-effective Services
589,884
9
1
—
44,436
12
4


—
Balances Irrecoverable and Claims Abandoned
22,026
2
11
—
—




269,068,510
7
11
14,901,974
2
4
Total Surpluses




Total Deficits £283,970,484 10 3
£14,507,555 10 8




Net Deficit met from Vote of Credit £269,462,928 19 7"

Resolved,
That the application of such surpluses be sanctioned."—[Captain Crookshank.]

Resolutions to be reported upon the next Sitting Day.

WAYS AND MEANS.

Considered in Committee.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

Resolved,
That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the Service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, the sum of £349,845,040 be granted out of the

Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—[Captain Crookshank.]

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day.

Committee to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

GREENWICH HOSPITAL AND TRAVERS' FOUNDATION.

Resolved,
That the Statement of the estimated Income and Expenditure of Greenwich Hospital and Travers' Foundation for the year ending on 31st March, 1943, presented to this House on 3rd June, be approved."—[Mr. George Hall.]

NATIONAL SERVICE (FOREIGN COUNTRIES) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This Bill is to enable British subjects in foreign countries to be called up for the Armed Forces. This principle is not a new one in international practice. It is, however, a new departure for this country. Certain Continental and other countries have uniformly followed the practice of making their conscription laws applicable to their citizens, wherever they may be. This Bill is not introduced because there has not been a good response from British communities in foreign countries on a voluntary basis, but the time has come to extend obligations similar to those at home. A very large number of people have responded to the voluntary appeals in various parts of the world, and we have provided special facilities for their return to this country to serve in the war effort. There is, however, a great moral reason behind this Bill. It is not merely a question of man-power but of demonstrating our determination to use every resource available for the defence of the United Nations. If anyone has not responded and has escaped the obligations that have been imposed on the citizens here at home, we feel it is desirable that as far as we can provide the law and the means, all British citizens should serve the country in this its hour of need.
The House will ask no doubt where and how this Bill is to be applied. Its first application will be to Egypt. There our forces are in the grip of battle with the enemy. It is not merely a question of the defence of Egypt. The defence of that territory is as much a defence of Britain as if they were fighting in Kent. Therefore, it becomes a question of utilising the man-power that is available, wherever the men may be. Alexandria and Cairo are in the line of attack, and probably in as great danger—or greater—as we are here, and we think it is right and proper that this measure should be applied in the first instance where the danger is most acute. We are not neglectful, however, of the position in other foreign countries. It is simply a question of priority of application.
I ought to explain that it is not proposed to interfere with the present arrangements with the United States of America under which British subjects of military age in that country join the United States Army if they do not enter a military or other service approved by the British Government. Where a reciprocal arrangement exists we think it better to follow that practice rather than to attempt to deal with the international problems raised by the application of this Measure.
The Bill will apply only in foreign countries. It will not be applied in the Dominions, India, Burma, Newfoundland or Southern Rhodesia, or in the Colonies, Protectorates or Mandated Territories. So far as these latter countries are concerned, it is not necessary to apply this particular Bill, because conscription can be effected by local legislation. So far as the Dominions are concerned, however, the matter will still be the subject of discussion with them, for rather than attempt to apply a Bill of this character to our own family of nations we prefer to discuss and arrive at internal arrangements within the Commonwealth itself.
The powers in the Bill apply only to British subjects. They will not apply to the citizens of any Dominion or of India, Burma, Newfoundland or Rhodesia in any circumstances; that is to say that if a citizen of one of the Dominions is—to take an illustration—in Egypt, this Bill will not apply to him.
I should add that it is the intention to take the same line as is adopted under the National Service Acts in this country in the case of those ordinarily resident in the foreign country. Under Section II of the National Service Act, 1939, the British Government can conscript any member or any subject of the Colonies in this country if he has been "ordinarily resident" here. In exactly the same way he will be deemed to be liable if he is in another country.
Another point that arises under the Bill concerns dual nationals. They were excluded from the Bill as originally drafted, but the Government propose to introduce an Amendment to Clause 1, sub-section (1), to enable them to be dealt with by the Order in Council in the light of the conditions in the individual countries. This question of duality of nationality arises in different ways in many countries. Egypt loomed large in the minds of the draftsmen when the Bill was designed, but


we found that if we had to deal with other countries the dual nationality problem would raise issues which would allow many of those who were in fact British nationals to escape their obligations. Therefore, it was felt better, especially as the Order-in-Council will have to lie on the Table of the House, to allow ourselves an element of flexibility in order to deal with this question of dual nationality according to the area of the world or the country in which we propose to apply the Measure.
The procedure, as I have indicated, will be by Order in Council, but the Order in Council will follow as closely as possible the procedure of the National Service Acts. The conditions to be met in the various countries to which this Measure may be applied vary considerably, and it is not possible to lay down all the conditions in a Bill. We shall require to have an element of adaptability to accord with the laws of the various countries, and we felt that if we laid a separate Order on each occasion, the House would have the opportunity of examining it in the light of the circumstances to be dealt with. The House will have a safeguard in Clause 2, which requires every Order to be laid before Parliament, with the right of either House to present a Prayer for its annulment. If, therefore, the Executive exceed what Parliament thinks is proper there will be an opportunity to raise the particular issues involved. Under this Bill we propose to lay down the same obligations as in the National Service Acts and to provide as far as humanly possible, rights of a like character. The Bill does not deal with such subjects as Civil Defence or industrial employment. They will have to be covered by Defence Regulations. Where people are not suitable for military service we must have the power to direct them, where it is possible so to do, to the most useful service which they can render.
Therefore, the rights and privileges attached to the obligation to serve will correspond, so far as is possible, to those in Great Britain. I propose to enumerate some of those rights. The British citizen will have the right to apply for postponement on hardship grounds. He will have the right to apply for exemption on the ground of conscience, similar to the provision here. It will be impossible to

reproduce all the provisions of the National Service Acts; for example, with regard to the constitution of the hardship committees and conscientious objection tribunals. We shall have to find alternative methods to achieve the same objects. The only caveat I enter is that, while we give the same rights, we cannot give exactly the same form of committee that we can give here at home, with the facilities that exist.
It will be appreciated that in applying this Measure to Egypt in the first instance we are in an interesting and, if I may say so, favourable position. There is the fact that the British Armed Forces are present in Egypt, subject to British military law, and there are special provisions to deal with problems of this character under the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty. This will facilitate the enforcement of calling-up to the Armed Forces. As I indicated, we have to adapt machinery in order to give efficient administration, and yet give the same rights, on the basis of justice, that we have at home, but not in the same form. We therefore propose that the machinery for calling-up should be under the control of the British Ambassador. The main civil functions in regard to British citizens in that country are under his direction and we feel sure that the citizens will be able to be dealt with properly, if the administrative work is placed under the British Ambassador.
We propose also to create a central board to advise him. This board will consist of a lawyer, a military representative and a civilian chosen after consultation with appropriate organisations representing the British community. We do not limit ourselves to consulting any one organisation; the Ambassador will have the duty of consulting a variety of forms of organisation that exist in those countries. In addition, we propose to appoint on the boards a woman member as well. So that you have the Ambassador, and then the central board, consisting of a legal person, a military representative, a civilian chosen after consultation with British organisations in the country concerned and a woman member.
So far as Egypt is concerned, we carry that a stage further, and propose to appoint three local boards, similarly composed, to work in each consular area on similar lines to those of the local machinery of the Ministry of Labour and National Service


here, through the district man-power boards. These local boards will consider problems of deferment and matters of that kind, but the applicants will have the right to appeal to the central board against any decision of the local board. Independent tribunals are also to be established to decide in cases of hardship and conscientious objection. The members of these tribunals are not to be in the service of the Crown in either a military or a civilian capacity. We feel that if we establish these as civilian tribunals it could not be argued that we had brought a military or governmental attitude into the tribunals.
The next problem is that of enforcement procedure. Of course, it cannot be exactly the same as here at home. There is no British court existing there corresponding to the court of summary jurisdiction in this country. Therefore, we have to find an alternative, and the proposal is that persons who do not comply with enlistment notices will be arrested in the same way as that provided for deserters. In other words, they will be issued with notices of medical examination and they will also be issued with enlistment notices. If they fail to respond, they will be treated as deserters and will be brought under the existing treaty arrangements between the two countries. I cannot see any alternative procedure, and it will be only the persons who fail to comply with the enlistment notice, according to the law laid down in the passage of this Measure, who will be arrested as deserters.
A difficulty may arise in connection with disputed nationality cases. We propose that they shall be settled by an appropriate tribunal. We recognise that, in the application of a Measure of this character, as was revealed in the recent Debate on the Allied Nationals Act the other day, this question of disputed nationality needs to be handled with great care. We are desirous that it shall be dealt with fairly and properly. By the time the Order-in-Council is submitted we shall have worked out the procedure, I hope to the satisfaction of the House. On the administrative side, it is proposed, in the application of this Measure to Egypt, in the first instance, to send an official from the Ministry of Labour to assist in the administration of the scheme. We took the view, I think quite properly, that the Ambassador and his staff who have been

engaged in entirely different work could not be expected to understand either the spirit or the intricacies of the operation of the National Service Acts in this country, and it has therefore been arranged, in order that the matter may be dealt with properly and I hope satisfactorily, that an experienced official from this country will be sent, so that the Ambassador and the various tribunals may be advised of the right approach to the problems that they may have to settle from time to time.

The question of what steps can be taken when the Measure has to be extended to other countries from the purely administrative point of view will have to be dealt with on its merits when we arrive at that stage. The point I have made for the moment about the official aid to be given by the Ministry of Labour applies primarily to the present set of circumstances in Egypt. I have no doubt that we shall be able to devise some plan of an appropriate character, when dealing with our nationals in other countries, to grapple with these vexed problems. This Bill also applies to women as well as to men, and this is made clear by the definition of His Majesty's Forces in Clause 3 that the Women's Auxiliary Services are included. That is one of the grounds for appointing a woman member on the Boards in the case of Egypt, and we shall do our best to get assistance from the existing organisations in Egypt which are concerned with the employment of women in that country.

I think that in this rather brief statement I have outlined the main provisions of the Measure. We feel that all the citizens of the United Nations should, as far as possible, be brought within the ambit of their respective laws. As far as our own country is concerned, as one of the biggest factors in the great United Nations effort, we feel that we should do all we can to utilise every man or woman who is a citizen to serve at this particular moment in this hour of great struggle. I believe that this Measure will be extremely popular abroad; it will clear away a lot of misgivings, for, very much as they were in this country, people are not so much refusing to do things as they are in need of direction as to what to do. This law, and its administration, will enable people to know either that they are rendering national service where they are or that they are being transferred to where they ought to be in the national


interest. It will, I am quite certain, impress other countries that Britain, in the struggle to win this war, does not intend to leave untouched any of its man- or woman-power. While the total numbers may not be great, the principle is important. The moral aspect is vital, and I believe the Measure will give satisfaction to citizens at home and give a proper opportunity to our citizens abroad.

Mr. Arthur Greenwood: I think that the House ought to congratulate my right hon. Friend and his colleagues on the logic of the case which has been put before the House. I remember a very tense scene in the House very shortly before the war broke out when I stood at the Opposition Box and accepted the second Bill for compulsory national service. It was a very hard thing for me to do, but the Measure was accepted. Granted that compulsory service is now generally acceptable to this House and to the people of this country, I think it logically follows that it ought to be extended to British nationals abroad. It is not so very long since, in collaboration with our Allies, we passed legislation to deal with their nationals, which gave us authority to use them here or gave the Allied Governments authority to conscript them for their own Services. It seems logical that we should extend the powers obtained here, to the countries not excluded from the Bill, and therefore my hon. Friends and I accept the Bill.
I am glad to know from my right hon. Friend that the voluntary response has been so good, but I take the point, and I think it is a vital one, of which he spoke early in his speech and at the end, namely the obligation which lies upon us to prove to the United Nations the whole-heartedness of our own efforts. It is often forgotten that, of the belligerents now actively engaged in the war, we alone declared war, and in that special sense we have a very great responsibility. It is a gesture—and I follow my right hon. Friend's argument in this matter—of considerable importance to the United Nations that we should extend the powers conferred on the Government with regard to the peoples over here to our own citizens abroad. The main burden of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was in reference to Egypt, and he admitted that there might have to be an extension sub-

sequently. I am glad to think that he intends to send an experienced officer to Egypt to handle all the complicated problems which are bound to arise, and with which even the Ambassador is not, and cannot in the nature of things be, familiar. I assume that my right hon. Friend, in so far as he is responsible for the administration of this Measure abroad, will try to apply the same kind of principles as those which he has applied here and will do so in the same broadminded spirit. In those circumstances I think that the House has no alternative but to agree unanimously to the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Mander: I think the Government are very wise in bringing forward this Bill; they might very well have done so at an earlier date. They will, none the less, be able to gather in a good many supporters to the war effort from different parts of the world through the machinery of this Bill. I would like to make a few remarks first of all with reference to the situation in the United States and the method which it is proposed to apply there. I quite understand that in the circumstances the Government procedure is the most appropriate one because of American legislation. My right hon. Friend said the response had been very good from the United States and other parts of the world. So it has, but there are a considerable number of people who have not responded, and there has been in the past a good deal of criticism in the United States. It has done us no good to have had a considerable number of eligible persons making no contribution at a time when the Americans were being conscripted.
I fully appreciate that large numbers of British people in America are much more usefully employed in what they are doing now and are making a much better contribution than if they were serving in the Armed Forces. My remarks do not apply to them and to many others who are only too anxious to play their part. But there are some of whom this cannot be said, and this applies not only to manpower but to financial power. I appreciate that this Bill does not deal with the conscription of wealth, but man-power. I wish it did deal with the conscription of wealth because a great deal of money is not contributing which might be made to do so. The fact that these people have been there has certainly done us no good.


I intend to refer, because I happen to have precise knowledge on this subject, to certain places in the United States where the authorities might usefully make their inquiries both on the question of man-power and finance, though I agree we are dealing only with man-power today. I ask them to make inquiries in New York, Long Island, the New-England coast, Santa Barbara, Del Monte, Carmel, Maryland, Virginia, Baltimore, Middleburg, Palm Beach, and Miami. They will find there are considerable numbers of the persons I have in mind in Southern California. I think that some investigation in those areas will be helpful to the war effort.
I desire to turn to another side of the problem with which my right hon. Friend dealt. In the course of his remarks on the question of enforcement he said he saw no alternative to the particular method he put forward. It is quite true that it will work very effectively in the case of Egypt owing to Treaty arrangements. It will work effectively in the case of the United States owing to the particular arrangements in force there. But it will certainly not work in the case of, say, the Argentine, where there are many British subjects. If they are called to the Colours there, no means exists of arresting them or making them respond. My right hon. Friend has said that it was very important we should strain every nerve to bring in every available person in any part of the world to join in the effort. I know he means it, and that it will be his desire to take every possible and reasonable step to bring in those persons. I think it is clear that the machinery of this Bill will not operate, certainly where neutral countries are concerned, and I venture to make these suggestions as a contribution to the solution of the problem of enforcement.
I believe that if you really mean business in those areas you will need to have the power to apply some of the sanctions of the kind to which I will now refer. It will be made clear, I suppose, that as is the case under the existing National Service Acts anyone not responding would be liable to imprisonment and arrest if they ever came into jurisdiction. Of course, they might not come into jurisdiction. It is possible that in certain cases, by arrangements with other countries, certainly with Allies, they could be arrested and handed over. The real

penalties however are these: If a British subject at this hour of our national peril is not prepared to make any effort to help, there is no valid reason why that person should remain a British subject. A suitable penalty would be to deprive them of their nationality. It should be in order to revoke their passports. They should be made liable to the forfeiture of all their assets in this country to the Crown. That is not an unreasonable penalty for people who refuse to bear the burdens that their fellow-citizens are bearing every day.
There is another possible sanction which might affect some British people. They should be treated as enemies under the Trading with the Enemy Act. It may be said that some of these sanctions are rather fierce, but the offence is serious. The refusal of a British subject at this time to do everything in his power, in whatever part of the world he may be, to help us to march towards victory is one of the most serious offences a human being can commit. While I do not expect the Government at this moment to make a final statement on the wisdom or the possibility of applying these sanctions, they are real sanctions. They Rave the backing of persons of profound legal knowledge—which I do not profess to have myself—who are well acquainted with international law, and I commend them to the earnest consideration of His Majesty's Government, to help them in the task which they desire to carry out in the national interest.

Colonel Stanley: The whole House must agree with the objects with which this Bill has been introduced. The hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) has referred to something which in the past has been in the nature of a scandal—the presence in the United States of, I think, a numerically small, but highly self-advertised, coterie, known as the Free English, who justified their refusal to take part in our war effort by running down all British institutions and openly hoping for a German victory. Those people have been dealt with by another, and, to my mind, much more appropriate, method than that contained in this Bill.
I am, I confess, confused as to how, in general, this Bill is going to operate. We are told that this is not an isolated Measure, but an attempt to bring all British subjects throughout the world into


the war effort, and to prove to the United Nations that all British subjects are in it. Although I agree that that is an admirable object, I want to put one or two questions to the Attorney-General, in order that I may be convinced that it is an object which will be capable of attainment under this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman drew his examples of the way that the Bill was going to work exclusively from the case of Egypt. Egypt stands in a category separate from that of other countries which may subsequently, as he gave us to hope, be covered by this Bill. The old, long history of the Capitulations has made a legal position between us and Egypt, and our British subjects in Egypt, which is quite different from that in any other country. Add to that the fact that although Egypt, like many other countries, is neutral, a fierce war is being carried on by both sides within her territory, without much respect for her neutrality. That obviously puts her, again, into a different category.
This Bill, however, is not applicable only to Egypt. We are given to understand that it may be applied to other countries, all of which—or most of which—will be completely neutral in law, whatever their feelings and sympathies may happen to be. I want to know what will be the effect of trying to apply the provisions of this Bill—which may or may not be all right for Egypt: I am not going to express an opinion either way—to other countries, such as, for instance, the South American republics. What would be the effect of the administrative provisions of this Bill, if carried, upon the neutrality of the country concerned? Is it proposed under this Bill to set up in a neutral country the whole machinery for the registration, examination and the subsequent conscription into our Armed Forces of British subjects who happen to be in that country? I would like to ask the Law Officers whether, if a neutral country were to permit that machinery to be set up under the aegis of our Ambassador, and to function openly in their State, it would not in fact be a breach of their neutrality?
The second point I would like to reinforce is that made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) with regard to sanctions. The one sanction that the right hon. Gentleman has of the immediate arrest

and the treatment as a deserter of the man who refuses to register may be applicable in Egypt, where they have the power of arrest and the people to make arrests, but obviously it is inapplicable to any other country to which the Measure might be extended. I would like to hear more from the spokesman of the Government on the sort of sanctions which they have in mind for the extensions of the Bill which they have led us to believe they contemplate? The hon. Member for East Wolverhampton, with a thoroughness for sanctions in relation to personal liberty which always characterises a Liberal when he turns into an authoritarian, has produced a long fist, but he will, I am sure, agree with me that, even with his ingenuity in seeking these new sanctions, a great many people in the countries concerned would not be touched by any of the sanctions he was able to produce. During the war, and certainly without the desire of the person concerned to return to the country, no sanction in fact would be enforceable.

Mr. Mander: My view of the sanctions was that they would make most of the persons respond. They are so severe that if those persons desired to remain British subjects they could hardly avoid them.

Colonel Stanley: I agree that they are very severe and make a formidable penalty hanging over a man, for the future, but there are no sanctions at present such as we can now enforce in this country, and such sanctions cannot in fact apply. This country is going to decide questions of neutrality in the territory of another State, and by Orders in Council of the Ministry of Labour we are to decide whether a man in Argentina or Brazil is to be regarded as a British subject or as an Argentinian or Brazilian.

The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell): There are a number of people who admittedly have dual nationality and the question was that under the Bill power should be taken, if thought proper, by Order in Council to apply conscription to British nationals notwithstanding the fact that they also had another nationality. It is not that we are dealing with a dispute as to dual nationality, but we preserve our right to conscript our own nationals and we do not regard dual nationality as a complete answer.

Colonel Stanley: I am obliged to my right hon. and learned Friend. Will he deal with the difficulty which might arise in attempting to apply sanctions in one of those countries to a person whom we regard as British but who is regarded by that country as one of their own subjects, singled out for penal treatment? There is one small point of drafting, and I should be very glad if he would look at it. That is in paragraph 2 (c) of Clause 1. He will see there that after giving general effect to the Bill we particularise the various things for which this Order in Council is to provide. We provide, first, for registration and examination, then for consideration of objections, and finally for enlistment and enrolment in any of His Majesty's Forces which may for the time being be present in that country. That is quite all right, as long as the Bill is devoted to Egypt. We have Forces there to whom enlistment and enrolment can apply, but when one extends it to some neutral country, say, in South America, that could not take place. I only want to know whether the doctrine "inclusio unius, exclusio alterius " does not in fact limit power to enrol and enlist in cases where we have Armed Forces in the country concerned? I am wholly in favour of this Bill, but as a layman I see considerable legal difficulties, and I would be grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General if he would remove them.

Wing-Commander James: There are one or two points on this Bill on which I also would like a little information. I was surprised and disappointed at the almost apologetic way in which the Minister introduced the Bill. I should have thought he required no excuse at all; it should have been introduced long ago. Primarily the Bill may be dealing in the ultimate resort with a very undeserving class of citizen. The overwhelming majority of British nationals who were earning their living overseas when the war began were among the most patriotic and zealous in the whole of the British Empire. I know that from personal experience, because on one occasion I had to go to young men doing important jobs and urge them not to leave them until such time as they were wanted for the war machine. Therefore, the residue left over, in certain countries at any rate, would be very undesirable people.
Before saying a word or two about them, however, there are two points I would like to mention. The Minister appeared to place confidence in the completeness of the consular lists, but I do not think they are complete. The Germans have a complete organisation with regard to their nationals abroad and exercise a rigorous control which amounts almost to tyranny over their nationals in foreign countries. But nothing like that applies to our nationals. The consular lists in many countries may be valuable, but I do not think they are complete, and may be evaded by the sort of person who has not reported to the consul at all. I would like to ask what warrant the Minister has for assuming that consular lists are complete with' all data about British nationals of military age? Another point which struck me was this—and surely the Leader of the House knows all about it. An Ambassador is the accredited representative of His Majesty to a foreign Power. It is rather a new departure if an Ambassador is to be used, as apparently under this Bill, as an instrument of the Ministry of Labour's policy. I am not questioning the desirability or otherwise of such a line but it is something new and should not be passed without any comment. To refer to an Ambassador as one who is to be told to do this or that by the Ministry of Labour is something very novel indeed.
I come back to the category of persons whom the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) and I have in mind in connection with this Bill. I do not see how the sanctions envisaged in the Bill can be applied in some cases, or, if they can be, that they will be sufficiently severe. One of the misfortunes of this war is that we have allowed to grow up in this country a body of some 66,000 "objectors" who are going to be in a position of comparative privilege compared with those who have served. As far as I can understand, they are to be under no disability whatever for having refused their obligation to serve in the Armed Forces. The position was different in the last war. The last war was not total war in the sense that this one is. In the last war people could, on philosophical grounds, hold views that are quite untenable in this war. Are we to extend this privilege to British nationals abroad? Are they to be allowed to object and because of their foreign resi-


dence refuse to serve? I go further than the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton. I suggest that such people as object or shirk should be deprived of their citizenship.

Mr. Mander: I said that.

Wing-Commander James: I go further than that. I know the old argument that one cannot take away a person's passport and leave him Stateless. Why not in this Bill establish a much-needed and valuable principle? Let us have second-class citizenship. Let these people be allowed to keep their passports but be deprived of their civil rights. I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the House whether it would not be very simple and very useful, on the Committee stage of the Bill, to insert a Clause whereby such people as do not obey the needs of their country shall be deprived for a period of, say, 20 years after the war of their rights of citizenship? How much better public life would be. Although we might lose a few good men, we should be saved a great deal of nonsense and rubbish. I hope that something on the lines I have suggested may be found to be possible.

Mr. Maxton: I was intrigued by the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) that there should be two standards of citizenship. Judging from the way in which the various States of the world have been conducting themselves for a number of years, it might be a very advantageous position for a man to get into, to find that he was a member of none of them and had neither rights and privileges from them nor obligations to them. I want the hon. and gallant Member, who has a philosophic mind, to consider that thought in his quiet moments.
I have opposed the conscription Measures before the House and I do not accept this one, although I admit the claim of the Minister of Labour that, logically, there is nothing to be said against this Measure. It can be defended absolutely on grounds of logic. If we apply conscription to the citizens of our own land resident in our own land, there is no objection in principle to its being applied to the citizens of this land who are living outside our borders. The principle of con-

scription has been accepted by the House on at least three or four occasions, and I shall not attempt to challenge the principle here. I think that in commending the Measure to the House, the Minister might have been a little more modest. I think it would have been better if he had limited the Measure to places where he had some hope of operating it. The whole world is a good bit of territory for the Minister of Labour of Great Britain to take in, and, as the hon. and gallant Member for Wellingborough suggested, it savours of the international organisation which the Nazis have built up whereby they could lay hands on their citizens in whatever country they resided, and bend them to their will. I do not know that the great British public is yet in that mood. We have gone a long way in the direction of trying to copy the international organisation of the Nazis and make our citizens, in the South American Republics, for instance, conform to our desires rather than obey the laws of the land in which they are living. That has been the essence of the problem which the Nazis have created throughout the world—compelling their citizens who reside in other countries to act against the interests of the country in which they are living and in the interests of the Nazis in Berlin.

Wing-Commander James: Surely the hon. Member cannot read into what I have said any such suggestion as that? It may be a good debating point, but it bears no relation whatever to what I said.

Mr. Maxton: If the hon. and gallant Members looks at the OFFICIAL REPORT, he will see he said that we had no desire to copy the Nazis. I see that the two hon. Members who promulgated this point of view are now in close contact with each other. If, separately, they thought of this fiendish device against British citizens in other parts of the world, Heaven knows what the two will produce if they get together. I object to this Measure, not because it extends further the principle of conscription—for that has been repeatedly affirmed by this House—but because I do not think the Minister of Labour is being candid in bringing it forward. He knows perfectly well that it will not apply to the United States, where, apparently, the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) has some friends who so far have escaped military service.

Mr. Mander: No.

Mr. Maxton: I listened to the list of places with which the hon. Member has established contact.

Mr. Mander: They are not my friends.

Mr. Maxton: His acquaintances.

Mr. Mander: No.

Mr. Maxton: Well, persons of whom he has knowledge. I move in different circles entirely from the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton. I have not a single friend, so far as I know, in the United States or in Egypt.

Mr. George Griffiths: Shame.

Mr. Maxton: It is a pity. This Measure does not apply to the United States. As the right hon. Gentleman just said, it cannot be operated in foreign countries, such as the republics of South America. Egypt is the only placed mentioned. Obviously there is some reason, about which the House has not been informed, why the Measure should be applied to Egypt at the present time. When the House is not told, we are left completely helpless. In my view, there must be a very small number of people in Egypt who would come within the scope of this Measure. Presumably, although the Minister did not mention it, there will be a list of reserved occupations, as in this country, and I imagine that a large proportion of the British citizens in Egypt are engaged upon some work for the British Government. If people are working with voluntary organisations, I gather that they will not be affected. There can be only a relatively small number of people, who, as the hon. and gallant Member for Wellingborough said, cannot be very desirable elements. I think, as one of the least militarist persons in this House, that hon. Members would hate to have a British Army composed of that type of people. I do not think you win wars on the basis of a group of people who, it is suggested here, are somehow or other able to hide in Egypt and keep themselves clear of all forms of local, industrial, commercial or business life and keep free of all sorts of military organisations, or voluntary organisations of one kind or another. How many thousands are there? We are giving the Minister the power to do this at any place in the world. He cites in justification only one place. We

shall be let into the secret of what other places are in contemplation, when an Order in Council is brought before the House. We are giving the Minister today the positive power to apply it anywhere, leaving ourselves only with the very negative power of rejecting particular Orders in Council, and it is commended to the House with Egypt as an example and not one single indication of how many people are involved. I do not think that is right. We want something more in the way of a case made than has been made for the application of this Measure to Egypt. I associate myself with the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Wellingborough in thinking that there is something just not right in making the Ambassador there the Government official responsible for operating this scheme. I should have thought that Egypt was the one place in the world where we did not need to use an Ambassador.
It was announced to us with great gusto that we were going to have a Minister of State doing responsible work for the Government out there, full time. Is he still there? This looks to me like a job. I wonder whether the Minister of Labour and his associates, in making their arrangements for this Measure, thought about the Minister of State who is out there, or whether, like me, they had forgotten about his existence. I should have thought that it was much more appropriate that the Minister of State, with the retinue which I imagine he has with him, should be responsible for this Measure and for dragging the 55 or 60 recalcitrant British citizens to the Army in order to demonstrate to the people of Egypt that we are so enthusiastic for the winning of the war that we are prepared to shove into the Army the most unlikely people, people with the least militant spirit, and people who are, perhaps, objects of scorn in that part of the world. I can see no other object in the Bill. I will take another opportunity to scrutinise the Orders in Council, but to-day, when we let this Second Reading go, we shall have given to the Minister general power to do this in any part of the world. He is getting it on a very insufficient case.

Sir Stanley Reed: I would like to support the Bill for a reason that has not been put before the House, My


hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) speaks on many questions with a knowledge and a wisdom which I do not possess and never shall possess, but perhaps he will allow me to put the case of those who have not come directly under his purview. I refer to the British residents serving abroad. The British resident is often placed in the most difficult and painful position. He does not know, unless the State informs him, exactly where his major responsibility lies. Over and over again, in the last war men came to me and implored me to press the Government to stipulate, for each individual, exactly where his national service lay. Many of these men had very heavy responsibilities and they could not decide of their own initiative, exactly in which way they could best discharge their duty. They would welcome the Government taking the responsibility for a decision off their shoulders and exercising it on behalf of the Realm, as it should be exercised. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) said that there was only a residue of people concerned and not an entirely desirable residue. That term should be qualified. It is true that most of the best went immediately, but many of those who are left could not leave their responsibilities at this moment. I am more than glad on their, behalf that the State is taking this responsibility and will decide for them and take a grievous burden off their shoulders.

Mr. Buchanan: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) I am not fond of conscription Measures, but, as he says, the principle has been accepted. I do not resent this Bill because I take the view that it is totally unworkable and that, in the main, it is a propaganda Measure. It may be defended in logic because it is conscription, but from other points of view it is illogical. When the House of Commons introduced conscription, it decided for good or ill to exclude Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is part of this country. We cannot apply conscription in a place within such a short distance of this country, yet we are seeking to impose it in the Argentine, in Brazil, America, Egypt and all over the world. We can fly from Glasgow into the heart of Northern Ireland in 50 minutes and yet we

cannot apply conscription there. That will sound ridiculous, just nonsense, to anyone living in those other countries. It cannot be done in a part of Britain—for Northern Ireland is part of Britain. Courageous as the Minister of Labour is, even he cannot do it there; he leaves the people in Northern Ireland alone. This House, when it passed the Measure, deliberately excluded Northern Ireland. It was a decision of the Government, but it was imposed by us. I ask whether there are any powers by which it could be applied to Northern Ireland by Order in Council, because if that were done it would mean that the Government were defying Parliament. The Minister shakes his head. Then I would ask, Are you to apply it to the Free State? I want to be sure about the Free State. I am told now it is not to be applied in the Free State, that Free State citizens are to be exempt. Although the Free State is not to be included, we are to force this in Egypt, and I want to say a word about applying the Measure there.
I understand from the Minister of Labour that all the rights in the conscription Acts are to be enjoyed by our nationals in Egypt. There is no right of reserved occupation, but there is the right, first, of conscientious objectors, and the right regarding hardships. Those are two rights which are to be granted. How are the local tribunals which are to deal with hardship cases to be composed? A hardship tribunal must consist of a chairman, usually a lawyer, a person drawn from the employers and a person drawn from the working people. That is the sort of tribunal which will have to be set up in Egypt. We are told there is a war going on, but these tribunals are to be set up almost among the guns to judge hardship.
Then there is a right of appeal. If the trade union representative dissents, there is an appeal to the umpire. Who is to be the umpire in Egypt? The Ambassador? There is often a High Court Judge as umpire in such cases. Perhaps the Attorney-General wants to go to Egypt in that capacity? There is another right; and I would like the Attorney-General to apply his mind to this particular matter. If a British citizen does not get satisfaction he knows he has the right to apply to the High Court to set aside the decision. How is the aggrieved citizen to exercise that right in Egypt? To what High Court


can he appeal? Not to the Egyptian High Court, because it has no locus in the working of the Measure, and not to the High Court here, because he is in Egypt and there is a war on. He has no appeal at all, in practice.
I do not oppose this Bill, but say that it will be ineffective. The machinery to work it is impossible. It is a first-class piece of window dressing. Why were we not told the number of citizens likely to be affected? Surely we are not asked to pass a Bill applying to a couple of hundred people. Surely we ought to have been told the number, after deducting those in reserved occupations, the physically unfit and others, and after the hardship and the conscientious objection tribunals have given their exemptions, who will be left, and affected by this Measure. If we knew the figures we could draw our own conclusions. Before we turn our Ambassadors into criminal officers, these things should be considered. The Ambassador is to be more than a mere administrator; there must be some form of dealing with people on the spot or the Measure will become ineffective. I pay little attention to the Measure, which is an expert Bill to conceal a lot of people who are worried about what to do and, like some people here at home, say that they wish the Government would make a decision for them.
Let us be quite frank; if any man has a decision to make, he does not need to wait until the Government make it for him. It is just a dodge to say, "I wish the Government would decide that "; if a person wishes to do the right thing, he can decide himself, and does not need the Government to decide for him. The Bill is not needed for that purpose. I would like the right hon. and learned Gentleman to tell us the numbers it is anticipated will be got in Egypt under this Bill. What will it add to the strength of the British Army in Egypt? What numbers are likely to be brought in in any foreign country, and what is the underlying purpose of the Bill? Seeing that it is not to apply to the Free State or to Northern Ireland, will it apply to Free State citizens or Northern Ireland citizens who are resident in Egypt? For my part, I do not understand the great necessity for this Measure. If this war is to be won, it will not be won or lost by the recruits obtained under this Measure. I hope the Government will win this war, but they will not

do it with petty measures like this, because this is a petty measure. Petty measures like this will never bring the Government of this country up to the required standard.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: I had not intended speaking in this Debate, but the proposal that was made by the hon. and gallant Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) was one that I could not hear put forward in this House without making a protest. He proposed to the Government that there should be a species of disfranchisement, a deprivation of civil rights, for all those who took up the position of conscientious objector, and he regretted that no proposal of that kind was contained in this Bill. I wish he might have been present, as I was and I think one other hon. Member who is in the Chamber, besides yourself, Mr. Speaker, on the occasion of the passing of the Representation of the People Bill in 1918. When the Bill was in Committee an Amendment was moved to disfranchise for a series of years those who had taken the position of conscientious objector, including those who had been recognised by the tribunals as conscientious objectors. On that occasion Lord Hugh Cecil gave to the House the noblest protest I have heard here, not because he agreed with those men—he profoundly disagreed—but because he felt that such a proposal would be contrary to the greatest traditions of this country, and that you should never force men to go against the deepest convictions of their conscience, that you ought always to respect a conscientious conviction, when sincere, even if you disagreed with it.
That was, I think, the noblest speech I have ever heard delivered in this House, and so profound was its effect that, although the Amendment was carried, there were scores of hon. Members who listened to that speech and who had intended to vote for the Amendment who went away and said they could not vote after listening to it. It is not just a question of the eloquence of one great orator, for this is a matter that affects our fundamental conceptions of citizenship. I honour the noble spirit of sacrifice of those who willingly go, out of a sense of duty, to give their lives in military service, but it is not the only form of sacrifice which men can render for their country. It is


possible to serve in other and humbler ways. I am thinking of men who are conscientious objectors who in this war have laid down their lives already in the pursuit of duty. There was one, a man in a humble position in Lancashire, who, after he had been before a tribunal and had received unconditional exemption, enlisted as an ordinary seaman on a merchant vessel. He gave his life in such a noble spirit of sacrifice, pursuing his duty to the last in most difficult circumstances, that the captain of that boat afterwards wrote a letter which was read by the chairman of the tribunal which had dealt with this case. The distinguished Judge who was the chairman of the tribunal paid a tribute to the unselfish character and devotion of that man and his true citizenship, although he could not, in accordance with his conviction, serve in the Army, Navy or Air Force.
I think of other men. I think of two men who have laid down their lives working with the Friends Ambulance Unit on the Burma Road and in hospital work in China; of another who lost his life in Libya a short time ago, a man of outstanding ability, of great literary power, who was not unwilling to go to the utmost personal risk, though he could not undertake military service. Surely the House will never wish to deprive of their citizenship men like those who have shown by their lives, and sometimes have been able to show by their death, the depth of meaning they attach to the duty of citizenship. It is because I believe that this Bill respects the rights of conscience in the way the previous Act has done that although I regret the extension of conscription anywhere in any country, I feel that it may be held to be justly conceived as in harmony with the spirit that underlies the main Act which it is following up.

Mr. A. Bevan: I would like to call the attention of the House to one fact in connection with this matter which I do not think has so far been mentioned. This Bill has obviously been considered by the Government for some time. I would like to know why it is that we are having the Second Reading to-day, and that it is proposed that the Bill shall go through all its remaining stages on the next Sitting Day. It seems to me to be an utterly unreasonable procedure. There has been a large number

of speeches, many of them raising points of detail, and very few speeches indeed have wholly blessed the Bill. We have not enough time to put in Amendments before the Committee Stage on the next Sitting Day. Why is it that the House of Commons is always the body to be ignored and hurried through in this way? The Civil Service, the Parliamentary draftsmen and the Government sit for weeks and months on Measures and expect us to pass them in one Sitting. I think it is a wholly unreasonable proposition. I think that the House is becoming such a rubber stamp affair that the Government no longer care what they bring before it; they expect us to endorse everything they want to do without giving these matters any proper consideration. If I can have the attention of those responsible for the Measure—if they can detach themselves for the moment from their advisers—there is only one representative of the Ministry of Labour on that bench; there is not a Member of the War Cabinet on that bench at all. We are considering a matter of some importance—if it were not very - important the Government would not want it so quickly—and we ought to have a guarantee from the representatives of the Government that they will not ask the House to pass this Measure through all stages at the next Sitting. We ought to have an opportunity of digesting what has been said in this Debate and of considering whether we ought not to move Amendments providing for certain safeguards.
My second point is this. I am deeply worried by some of the implications of this Bill. I do not agree with some of my hon. Friends that it is unimportant. I conceive a number of important developments arising from it. I would ask, being a person not in favour of government and having fought Governments all my life: where is the person who does not agree with Governments to take sanctuary in the world? Apparently there is to be no right of sanctuary anywhere. You have only to have a number of Governments of the same mind, in America and in Great Britain, in Russia and in Germany—and that might easily happen—to drive all dissident persons off the face of the earth. In times gone by, the inspirers of the Russian Revolution were able to live here, because the Tsarists could not get at them. If we allow this Bill to go


through, and unnamed intimidation and discrimination to be exercised by British Ambassadors in every part of the world, such a position may be completely reversed. I will not mention any names, but I can think of countries on the Continent of America where revolutionaries have taken sanctuary, and where they have been able to carry on their activities—quite proper activities from the standpoint of mankind as a whole, but wholly objectionable activities from the point of view of certain Governments—but they would be unable to do so if these provisions were carried.
I am worried about the first Clause, under which an Order in Council can be made imposing on a body of British citizens in any part of the world the obligation to serve, under the National Service Acts. The Minister of Labour—that is to say, the Executive—has power to exercise individual discriminations not formerly exercised in matters of this sort. He can say, "This man must stay at his job, and that man must go into the Army." That sort of thing never happened in the last war. People were then called up in categories and age groups, but not as individuals. If the British Ambassador in any country, on instructions from the Foreign Secretary, objects to what a certain British citizen is saying or doing in that country, all that has to be done is to make an Order rendering that individual subject to the National Service Acts of this country. Immediately, without proper safeguards, a weapon of extraordinary discrimination and intimidation is put into the hands of the Executive. If I were in Mexico, the Argentine, or Chile, and we had in this country a reactionary Government—I do not suggest for a moment that the present Government are reactionary, although they are slightly mottled—they could immediately yank me over. They could leave all their friends untouched, by mere Executive act, but those whom they do not like they could shift all over the country, by means of directions—as I think the Minister of Labour now calls it—to places where they would be innocuous.
The House should not give such powers as that without asking for safeguards as to the way in which they shall be used. There are too many important problems raised by this Bill for the House to be asked to rush it through without a chance to examine all its implications. Mr. Speaker, I ask your protection. What is

the purpose of the Second Reading except to disclose the implications of a Measure-and to enable one to ask oneself how it can be amended? Ought we not to be protected from this method of making the House a rubber stamp by asking us to authorise anything that they want to do in a few hours? I seriously suggest to the Government that they should postpone the Committee stage, or on the next Sitting Day we may put down Amendments and embarrass the Government by asking them to consider them.

The Attorney-General: My right hon. Friend who has had to go on urgent business connected with the war would have been well satisfied with the reception his Bill received, not only from every speaker in the Debate, but from my right hon. Friend who welcomed the Bill on behalf of the party opposite, and my hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander), who thought that it did not go far enough, also welcomed the principle of the Bill. I agree that a Measure of this kind raises certain points which were expressed most forcibly and concisely by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Westmorland (Colonel Stanley). It is worth remembering that a Measure of this kind does assimilate our conscription law to the conscription laws as they have been in most other countries, that is to say, that the ordinary conscription law of a country does apply and has applied, as far as I know to all the citizens and nationals of that country wherever they may be. In the old days, for instance, the young Frenchman who reached military age in this country would get his calling-up notice from his consul under the general direction of his Ambassador, and, if he did not comply with it, he could not be touched here, but he could be proceeded against if and when he went back to France.

Mr. Bellenger: Was there no discrimination in this business of calling up persons?

The Attorney-General: I imagine that they had the same general machinery as we have.

Mr. Bcllenger: Oh, no, everybody is liable.

The Attorney-General: Certainly not. My hon. Friend even with as inadequate an acquaintance of French novels as I have will know of many cases where men were not called up.

Colonel Stanley: What was the precedent in the Franco-Prussian war? Did we allow the machinery of French conscription to operate in this country during that war?

The Attorney-General: I am coming to the question of whether it affects neutrality. All I can say is that normally countries which have had conscription have applied it to their citizens wherever they were, and that seems the natural thing to do. Why should a man be able to escape his military obligation by going abroad? I agree when one is considering the law, as it was in France and Germany, that generally countries call up the men at 19 or 20, whereas we, under the pressure of war, have applied conscription in a very different way, but I cannot for the life of me see why you should start with the view that there is anything absurd in saying that the obligation of military service should not be limited to those citizens who are within the jurisdiction. The only real method, which, I think, is being applied in most countries, is to apply it to everybody. It is worth noting that, when the House passed the Military Training Act, 1939, power was taken under Section 18 of that Act to do exactly what this Bill proposes to do, namely, by Order in Council to apply the Military Training Act to British subjects in foreign countries, and that principle was accepted. It was not put into the National Service Act, because, obviously, difficult questions arose, and it was thought better to leave it. This matter has been under consideration for some time, and it is very desirable that there should be the application of this principle to Egypt as soon as possible.

Mr. Bevan: Under consideration for some time?

The Attorney-General: The general question, yes. The reason why we are asking the House to pass this Bill as a matter of urgency is that it is obviously desirable to apply this procedure to Egypt as soon as possible.

Mr. Bevan: Limiting it to Egypt and then having other Bills for the rest?

The Attorney-General: No, Sir. The principle has been accepted by the right hon. Gentleman opposite on behalf of his party—

Mr. Bevan: No, I object. The Attorney-General must not allow anybody to

speak for me; I speak for myself in this matter.

The Attorney-General: I thought that might be so, but the principle of the Bill has, I think, received the general approval of the principal parties and Members in this House, and, therefore, I do not think any case can be made out for postponing the general principle of the Bill. I was explaining that the reason the House is being asked to pass this Bill as a matter of urgency is that it is important that its principle should be applied to Egypt—

Mr. Maxton: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain what is the importance of applying it to Egypt, of all places in the world?

The Attorney-General: Some thousands are affected by this Bill. The enemy is very near the gates of Egypt, and if there is an area in the world where the application of military service should be enforced, it is that area. I cannot understand the hon. Gentleman's question. If he cannot give an answer as to the importance of applying this principle, if it is accepted, to Egypt, I am surprised.

Mr. Maxton: I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not resent being interrupted, but the Government are asking a good deal from the House in the presentation of this Measure. Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain to me how a person who is to be taken into the Army by the operation of this Bill is to be of effective use in the military situation with which Egypt is now confronted?

The Attorney-General: You might say, "Do not let us take anybody else into the Army because they will not be of use for from three to six months." If you argue like that, you will soon find yourself in Queer Street. I appreciated the hon. Gentleman's great anxiety that undesirable people should not be enlisted or conscripted. He said they might not make the best fighting men, and he was a little apprehensive about that. Well, we must do our best to meet that difficulty. That argument could be used against conscription at any time and any place—but by compulsion you get in some people who are in a genuine dilemma. And there are also other people who, perhaps, are not by nature violent fighting men and


who have not taken the plunge themselves but who, when told it is their legal duty to do so, join up. Many such men make the most admirable and gallant soldiers.

Mr. Mack: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman think the Government's case would have been fortified had they taken advantage earlier of this potential manpower in Egypt and not left it until the present desperate situation?

The Attorney-General: I do not think so. There has been a good response from British subjects in Egypt, and many men have come forward, but it has been thought right that in the situation Egypt is now in compulsion should be applied and that it should be treated as a matter of urgency as the invader is at the gates.

Major McCallum: Will my right hon. and learned Friend tell me what classes of British people in Egypt will be affected by the Bill? I have many years of experience in Egypt and I know that before I left, the pure British subjects were all enrolled in the war effort. One could not find one who was not.

The Attorney-General: There is a number of people who are not enrolled, although many have come forward. It is difficult to make an exact estimate, but undoubtedly there are some thousands involved.
I come now to the more general point regarding sanctions. This Bill falls into line, as far as my knowledge goes, with the general principles on which the conscription laws of different countries have proceeded. It is true that the sanction, apart from the special position in Egypt, which was fully explained by my right hon. Friend, is not a complete one. The sanction does depend, in the ordinary cases where we are not able to make special arrangements as we can with the Egyptian Government, on the fact that if and when the man returns to his own country he will find that he can be proceeded against. That was the sanction in the case of my hypothetical young Frenchman who was here before the war. If the Bill were applied to a South American country, for instance, that would be, in all normal cases, the only sanction. I agree it is not complete, but we do not think that for that reason it is of no value. There are a great many people, par-

ticularly the younger ones who would be affected, who certainly, in the ordinary course, would want to come back to this country from time to time, and quite apart from any sense they might have of obligation and moral duty, they would not want to put themselves in the position in which, if and when they came back here, they might be met by a warrant at the quay. Undoubtedly, that is a substantial sanction. If a man intended never to come back here, there is no sanction in the ordinary case.
Of course, in war-time—naturally one does not want to indicate or suggest any country, nor have I one in mind—one might find that a country, it might be an Ally, would be willing to do for us what we have done for the Allied Governments here, and make some such arrangement, or co-operate in some different way. One might get a State which, without being an Ally, was friendly, and it might be possible to make some arrangement which would enable us to enforce the thing rather more effectively than we could in a country which was a neutral and which proceeded as a neutral and restricted us to doing only what we could properly do in a neutral country. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Westmorland (Colonel Stanley) asked how this Bill would affect neutrality. Of course, when my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour was introducing the Bill, in describing the machinery of the committees and so on, he explained what would happen in Egypt. He was not explaining how it would work or what would be the basis of an Order in Council if and when applied to another country. I think there may have been some misunderstanding about that.

Colonel Stanley: I must confess there was a misunderstanding. I thought he was explaining the general principles upon which this Bill was based.

The Attorney-General: I do not think so. He explained that each Order in Council would have to be debated. The whole basis of the position in Egypt arises from the fact that not only are we able to make arrangements with the Egyptian Government, but also that we have Forces on the spot in which the men can be enlisted.

Mr. Bevan: There is no urgency about that, because these men cannot be used for weeks and months.

The Attorney-General: We have/to get them.

Wing-Commander James: Surely the Attorney-General will know that in many foreign countries persons possessing British passports have never been in this country and have no intention of coming to this country? Such persons are a great nuisance, particularly in war-time, because they seek our protection and take full advantage of our citizenship. Such persons will be subject to no sanction whatever. I think the Hollywood acquaintances of my hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) come into this category as well.

The Attorney-General: If the hon. and gallant Member will be a little patient, I will deal with his suggestions as regards sanction. I was suggesting that normally that was the sanction and the only sanction. It is imperfect, but we think it is right.

Colonel Stanley: Is the Attorney-General going to fill the gap which, owing to a misunderstanding, has been left by the Minister of Labour? Is he now going to do what the Minister did not do, and give some idea how this is to be applied to other countries?

The Attorney-General: Taking the extreme neutral country, all you can do is to say, by Order in Council, that men in that country are liable to compulsory military service. There would be some procedure for them to register with the consul, and, if they did not comply with any directions, they would commit an offence and would be subject to penalties similar to those contained in the National Service Acts. That is the broad way in which a conscription Act is applied.

Colonel Stanley: Could appeal tribunals be set up?

The Attorney-General: No, Sir. You would have a sifting-out method for men who were doing work of national importance. You would not give instructions to a man with one leg, because you would not want him home. I would not like to say how it will be possible to have some arrangement for examination of conscience; that is one of the things which would have to be considered when an Order in Council was made. Obviously, the protection of the Act would be applic-

able when the man got back, but how it would apply out there would be a matter for consideration.

Mr. Logan: How would the neutrality of a country be affected if it allowed enlistment' to take place? What would be the international law in regard to the neutrality of that country?

The Attorney-General: It has never been suggested that there was any breach of neutrality in serving enlistment notices in ordinary times. Take the possible case of reservists abroad in Continental countries. I do not think anyone would have suggested that the serving of a notice to a reservist in a neutral country constituted a breach of neutrality.

Mr. Bowles: What does the Attorney-General mean by ordinary times? Does he mean peace-time?

The Attorney-General: I said in ordinary times—in peace-time. I said I did not think in war-time anyone could suggest that it was a breach of neutrality, for instance, to send notices calling up reservists. Take the vast number of the conscript Continental armes. I cannot say whether they are called reservists. Perhaps they have had two years and are liable to be recalled to the Colours on mobilisation, and are scattered all over the globe. No one could suggest that there would be a breach of neutrality in serving notices' on them, nor could it be suggested that it was any breach of neutrality if we served notices on our citizens abroad if and when, by law, they are liable to compulsory military service. If you started setting up some big organisation it might be. A breach of neutrality would be much more likely to arise if you tried to enlist voluntarily, than if you had a regular machinery for compulsory enlistment, because it is for voluntary enlistment that you want to advertise, and so on.

Mr. Logan: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain dual nationality? Is not that likely to cause complications?

The Attorney-General: I do not think so. Anything may cause complications. That is a different point, which my right hon. Friend dealt with when introducing the Bill. There is power in the Bill, if a


man is a British national, to apply the obligation to him. It will be no answer for him, as far as the Bill as we propose to amend it is concerned, to say, "I am also a citizen of somewhere else." Citizenship of some countries may be acquired very easily and therefore it may be right to say, "You were born a British national, you are a British national under British law, and we preserve the right to call you up." In other countries it may be that people of dual nationality form a definite category whom you do not want to call up, and that is the case with regard to Egypt. The suggested sanction of deprivation of citizenship is attractive, but I think very difficult. For one thing, it is flying in the face of the facts. It does not inconvenience only the individual if you deprive him of nationality. Stateless people are a great nuisance to every one. They are a great trouble to any country in which they are. They may be troublesome to the courts which have to wind up their estates. I do not think it would be at all a good policy to adopt, as an extra sanction for a Measure of this kind, the deprivation of nationality.
Another suggestion was to take all the person's assets. That is a fine. One of the troubles about it is that it will be very hard to do it unless you have been able to try him. Some one has to determine whether he has disobeyed your law. He may not have got the notice. He may have changed his address. All we should know was that he had not turned up. It would be contrary to the Liberal principles of the hon. Member to say that a man should be condemned in his absence without a chance of defending himself. I think the result may be that one has to face the fact which every country has faced in the past, and we have faced ourselves, I suppose, in the very limited field of reservists. If a reservist of the Regular Army happened to be abroad when he was recalled to the Colours, and if he did not come, we could not do anything to him unless and until he came back to this country. It may be that we shall have to rest content with the sanction, recognising that it is imperfect, but the principle is right. It will have an effect, but there may be some people who will never want to come back to this country, who will be unpunished and will escape any consequences.

Wing-Commander James: The right hon and learned Gentleman misquoted

me. I did not suggest the withdrawal of nationality, but I said citizenship, and the two things are not exactly the same.

The Attorney-General: I did not appreciate the distinction. The right of citizenship is perhaps the right to vote, and this is ex hypothesi a man who will not come here and who would not suffer much from being deprived of that right. We are prepared to consider any fair and practical methods, but at present advised I can see difficulties about the suggestions that have been made.

Mr. Mander: I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is prepared to give serious consideration to the proposal I put forward.

The Attorney-General: I give serious consideration to everything that my hon. Friend puts forward.

Mr. Bevan: Are sanctions to be put in the Order in Council?

The Attorney-General: No.

Mr. Bevan: Therefore you cannot give consideration to them.

The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend has put down an Amendment and he has raised the point on Second Reading. I am definitely of opinion that the suggestion as to nationality is impracticable. As to the forfeiture of assets, it is also impracticable and impossible to work without a trial. I cannot hold out any hopes that I shall alter my view that these suggestions are not practicable. My hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) asked me about the position of citizens of Northern Ireland, and of Eire. There is no such thing as Northern Ireland citizenship, as distinct from British subject or United Kingdom British subject. A person from Northern Ireland will be affected by the Order in Council in the same way as a person who normally resides in this country.

Mr. Buchanan: So conscription cannot be applied to a person normally resident in Northern Ireland if he stays there, but if he goes to Egypt conscription can be applied to him?

The Attorney-General: Or if he comes here conscription applies to him at once.

Mr. Silverman: If a citizen of Northern Ireland came here


that would not make him automatically liable under the Military Service Act unless his normal residence became United Kingdom residence?

The Attorney-General: If he comes from Canada, he has to be here for two years. If he comes from Northern Ireland, he becomes liable at once.

Mr. Bellenger: He will not come then.

The Attorney-General: The Free State citizen under the proviso to Clause I (1) of the Bill will not be affected by an Order in Council if he is in Egypt. This Bill, following certain precedents in rather different contexts, does not affect the national or citizen of a Dominion under their own law or who belongs to an Dominion that has not a nationality or citizenship law. That is a precedent that is often followed. The Irish Free State have their own nationality law, and Canada has a citizenship law. Therefore, anybody who is an Irish Free State national or a Canadian citizen under their respective laws, if in Egypt, will not be affected by the Order in Council by virtue of Clause I (1) of the Bill.

Mr. McKinlay: Assuming that a man comes from the North of Ireland to take up temporary employment in the building industry, am I right in assuming that he is liable to be called up at any time for military service, but that if he stays at home you cannot take him?

The Attorney-General: That point does not really arise on this Bill.

Mr. Logan: Does not the reverse happen in regard to the Irish Free State? Does it follow that a citizen of the Irish Free State would not come under the Measure at all, no matter how long he was in residence here for employment purposes?

The Attorney-General: People from the Irish Free State come under the Act if they are here for two years. There was a case in the courts in which five men from Southern Ireland sought to show that they were not British subjects. The case arose on a calling-up notice or a refusal to have medical examination. I have done my best to answer questions, and though I am afraid the continuity of my argument may have suffered a little—

Mr. Bevan: I raised the question of they safeguards.

The Attorney-General: My right hon. Friend dealt rather fully with that point, but I can say it again. These Orders in m Council though they cannot, of course, exactly reproduce the machinery of the e Act will provide the like safeguards. Take the question of the umpire, for instance. I understand that it is not contemplated to have an appeal to an umpire in Egypt. But is is contemplated that there will be an appeal from the local committee to a n central committee. The intention of this s Bill is that we should do our best to pro-r vide proper machinery, having regard to e the circumstances, for the main principles r and safeguards laid down in the Act. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the r Member for Westmorland asked me to forecast a little more fully than I had done e what the procedure might be—and this d is only a prophecy—if one applied this main Order in Council to, say, a neutral e country, Ruritania, where there were no r special arrangements in force. I do not e want to be tied down or to tie down those e who have to deal with the problem, but it seems to me there might be an arrangement on the spot for dealing with age and medical fitness. You do not want to have e to pay a man's passage across the seas and then find that he is unfit. I said I thought it was doubtful whether you would be able to have a satisfactory arrangement with regard to conscientious u objectors, but you might be able to. You might have some machinery under which you could at any rate sift out 100 percent. conscientious objectors. If it was not wholly satisfactory you could have a further arrangement whereby, when the man got here, he could say, "I am a conscientious objector and the examination out there was all very amateurish" e and he could come before another tribunal; but then you would have got him here and he would have the safeguards.

Mr. Bevan: I am doing my utmost to try to avoid any difficulties on the next stage. What we require, and what I think the whole House would like to see, is some form of appeal at the disposal of the person who is called up which is not an appeal to the Executive which is making the call up. Therefore, can an assurance be given that when the Orders are drawn up there will be machinery which will enable a person to appeal to someone


outside the Executive or the servants of the Executive against the decision of the Executive?

The Attorney-General: Under the Egyptian Order in Council, as explained by my right hon. Friend, the appeal is to an independent body which has nothing to do with the Executive. I can also say that if and when this Measure is applied to some other country the House would have cause for complaint if there were no such appeal either in that foreign country or, if that were found to be impracticable, there were no arrangement for the matter to be decided by our own machinery here, so that the man could have his complaint investigated and adjudicated upon. I am quite prepared to give that assurance. Subject to that, I believe that this principle is sound. One hon. Member suggested that this was merely a propaganda Measure, but we are affirming a principle which is not at all a new one in this area of conscription and we think it right to do it at the present time. The case of Egypt has rather precipitated the matter. We hope that the House will give the Measure a Second Reading.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for the next Sitting Day.—[Major Sir James Edmondson."]

HOUSE OF COMMONS MEMBERS' FUND ACT, 1939.

Resolved,
That Sir Charles Edwards be appointed a Managing Trustee of the House of Commons Members' Fund in pursuance of Section two of the House of Commons Members' Fund Act, 1939."—[Sir J. Edmondson.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after the hour appointed for the Adjournment of the House, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.